Group Communication Patterns for High Performance Computing in Scala

We developed a Functional object-oriented Parallel framework (FooPar) for high-level high-performance computing in Scala. Central to this framework are Distributed Memory Parallel Data structures (DPDs), i.e., collections of data distributed in a shared nothing system together with parallel operations on these data. In this paper, we first present FooPar's architecture and the idea of DPDs and group communications. Then, we show how DPDs can be implemented elegantly and efficiently in Scala based on the Traversable/Builder pattern, unifying Functional and Object-Oriented Programming. We prove the correctness and safety of one communication algorithm and show how specification testing (via ScalaCheck) can be used to bridge the gap between proof and implementation. Furthermore, we show that the group communication operations of FooPar outperform those of the MPJ Express open source MPI-bindings for Java, both asymptotically and empirically. FooPar has already been shown to be capable of achieving close-to-optimal performance for dense matrix-matrix multiplication via JNI. In this article, we present results on a parallel implementation of the Floyd-Warshall algorithm in FooPar, achieving more than 94 % efficiency compared to the serial version on a cluster using 100 cores for matrices of dimension 38000 x 38000

Constructing an advanced software tool for planetary atmospheric modeling

Scientific model building can be an intensive and painstaking process, often involving the development of large and complex computer programs. Despite the effort involved, scientific models cannot be easily distributed and shared with other scientists. In general, implemented scientific models are complex, idiosyncratic, and difficult for anyone but the original scientist/programmer to understand. We believe that advanced software techniques can facilitate both the model building and model sharing process. In this paper, we describe a prototype for a scientific modeling software tool that serves as an aid to the scientist in developing and using models. This tool includes an interactive intelligent graphical interface, a high level domain specific modeling language, a library of physics equations and experimental datasets, and a suite of data display facilities. Our prototype has been developed in the domain of planetary atmospheric modeling, and is being used to construct models of Titan's atmosphere

Intelligent customer relationship management (ICRM) by EFLOW portal

Customer relationship management (CRM) has become a strategic initiative aimed at getting, growing, and retaining the right customers. A great amount of numeric data and even more soft information are available about customers. The strategy of building and maintaining customer relations can be described with 'if… then' rules acquired from experts. Doctus Knowledge-Based System provides a new and simplified approach in the field of knowledge management. It is able to cope with tacit and implicit rules at the same time, so decision makers can clearly see the satisfactory solution (then and there). It reasons both deductive and inductive, so it enables the user to check on the model graph why is the chosen solution in the given situation most appropriate. It is upgradeable with in telligent portal, which presents the personalized (body-tailored) information for decision makers. When we need some hard data from a database or a data warehouse, we have automatic connection between case input interface and the database. Doctus recognizes the relations between the data, it selects them and provides only the needed rules to the decision maker. Intelligent portal puts our experience on the web, so our knowledge base is constantly improving with new 'if… then' rules. We support decision mak ing with two interfaces. On the Developer Interface the attributes, the values and the 'if… then' rules can be modified. The intelligent portal is used as a managerial decision support tool. This interface can be used without seeing the knowledge base, we only see the personalized soft information. ICRM (intelligent Customer Relationship Management) helps customer to get the requested information quickly. It is also capable of customizing the questionnaires, so the customer doesn't have to answer irrelevant questions and the decision maker doesn't have to read endless reports

Scientists in the MIST: Simplifying Interface Design for End Users

We are building a Malleable Interactive Software Toolkit (MIST), a tool set and infrastructure to simplify the design and construction of dynamically-reconfigurable (malleable) interactive software. Malleable software offers the end-user powerful tools to reshape their interactive environment on the fly. We aim to make the construction of such software straightforward, and to make reconfiguration of the resulting systems approachable and manageable to an educated, but non-specialist, user. To do so, we draw on a diverse body of existing research on alternative approaches to user interface (UI) and interactive software construction, including declarative UI languages, constraint-based programming and UI management, reflection and data-driven programming, and visual programming techniques

SWI-Prolog and the Web

Where Prolog is commonly seen as a component in a Web application that is either embedded or communicates using a proprietary protocol, we propose an architecture where Prolog communicates to other components in a Web application using the standard HTTP protocol. By avoiding embedding in external Web servers development and deployment become much easier. To support this architecture, in addition to the transfer protocol, we must also support parsing, representing and generating the key Web document types such as HTML, XML and RDF. This paper motivates the design decisions in the libraries and extensions to Prolog for handling Web documents and protocols. The design has been guided by the requirement to handle large documents efficiently. The described libraries support a wide range of Web applications ranging from HTML and XML documents to Semantic Web RDF processing. To appear in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP)Comment: 31 pages, 24 figures and 2 tables. To appear in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP

Feasibility Study of RFID Technology for Construction Load Tracking

INE/AUTC 10.0