Workshop proceedings: Information Systems for Space Astrophysics in the 21st Century, volume 1

The Astrophysical Information Systems Workshop was one of the three Integrated Technology Planning workshops. Its objectives were to develop an understanding of future mission requirements for information systems, the potential role of technology in meeting these requirements, and the areas in which NASA investment might have the greatest impact. Workshop participants were briefed on the astrophysical mission set with an emphasis on those missions that drive information systems technology, the existing NASA space-science operations infrastructure, and the ongoing and planned NASA information systems technology programs. Program plans and recommendations were prepared in five technical areas: Mission Planning and Operations; Space-Borne Data Processing; Space-to-Earth Communications; Science Data Systems; and Data Analysis, Integration, and Visualization

From analogy-making to modelling : the history of analog computing as a modelling technology

Today, modern computers are based on digital technology. However, during the decades after 1940, digital computers were complemented by the separate technology of analog computing. But what was analog computing, what were its merits, and who were its users? This thesis investigates the conceptual and technological history of analog computing. As a concept, analog computing represents the entwinement of a complex pre-history of meanings, including calculation, modelling, continuity and analogy. These themes are not only landmarks of analog's etymology, but also represent the blend of practices, ways of thinking, and social ties that together comprise an 'analog culture'. The first half of this thesis identifies how the history of this technology can be understood in terms of the two parallel themes of calculation and modelling. Structuring the history around these themes demonstrates that technologies associated with modelling have less representation in the historiography. Basing the investigation around modelling applications, the thesis investigates the formation of analog culture. The second half of this thesis applies the themes of modelling and information generation to understand analog use in context. Through looking at examples of analog use in academic research, oil reservoir modelling, aeronautical design, and meteorology, the thesis explores why certain communities used analog and considers the relationship between analog and digital in these contexts. This study demonstrates that analog modelling is an example of information generation rather than information processing. Rather than focusing on the categories of analog and digital, it is argued that future historical scholarship in this field should give greater prominence to the more general theme of modelling

Prototyping Z specifications in extended Lisp.

Much research has identified shortcomings in the Requirements Description to be the key factor in the failure of many software development projects; the development of formal specification techniques and notations allows the unambiguous statement of requirements, against which an implementation can generally be verified or even proved. While this approach will resolve many of the difficulties, it is impossible to formally confirm that such a specification is correct with respect to the intention of the customer; the abstraction that is characteristic of such languages can make the formal specification inaccessible without specialist skills. Z is one such, model-based, specification notation and this thesis reports on a CASE tool, the Z Animator in Lisp, that supports a process of specification validation through animation. A specification in the proprietary ZAL format, a high-level, largely functional, executable notation based on extended Lisp, can be executed by the Animation Engine within the ZAL animation environment. Using a graphical environment running under Microsoft Windows, schemas representing the operations upon the state are animated by populating their inputs, evaluating their predicates and reporting the outcomes to the user; these outcomes can be used to directly update the state, prior to further executions. The animator ensures the consistency of the on-going model state by the execution of the system invariant. The user can identify precisely which elements of the state should be displayed and can thereby focus on the particular areas of interest. This interaction is significantly more accessible to the customer and can be used to explore properties of the specification and thereby confirm, or not, that it exhibits the desired behaviour. This process validates the specification with respect to customer intention.Because the transformation into the proprietary ZAL language can be largely automated, using a companion CASE tool called TranZit, the process supports theiterative development of an improved specification, since at each stage the Z document reflects the system being animated

From analogy-making to modelling : the history of analog computing as a modelling technology

Today, modern computers are based on digital technology. However, during the decades after 1940, digital computers were complemented by the separate technology of analog computing. But what was analog computing, what were its merits, and who were its users? This thesis investigates the conceptual and technological history of analog computing. As a concept, analog computing represents the entwinement of a complex pre-history of meanings, including calculation, modelling, continuity and analogy. These themes are not only landmarks of analog's etymology, but also represent the blend of practices, ways of thinking, and social ties that together comprise an `analog culture'. The first half of this thesis identifies how the history of this technology can be understood in terms of the two parallel themes of calculation and modelling. Structuring the history around these themes demonstrates that technologies associated with modelling have less representation in the historiography. Basing the investigation around modelling applications, the thesis investigates the formation of analog culture. The second half of this thesis applies the themes of modelling and information generation to understand analog use in context. Through looking at examples of analog use in academic research, oil reservoir modelling, aeronautical design, and meteorology, the thesis explores why certain communities used analog and considers the relationship between analog and digital in these contexts. This study demonstrates that analog modelling is an example of information generation rather than information processing. Rather than focusing on the categories of analog and digital, it is argued that future historical scholarship in this field should give greater prominence to the more general theme of modelling.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceUniversity of Warwick. Dept. of Computer Science (DCS)GBUnited Kingdo

1990-1995 Brock Campus News

A compilation of the administration newspaper, Brock Campus News, for the years 1990 through 1995. It had previously been titled The Blue Badger

Cognitive Foundations for Visual Analytics

In this report, we provide an overview of scientific/technical literature on information visualization and VA. Topics discussed include an update and overview of the extensive literature search conducted for this study, the nature and purpose of the field, major research thrusts, and scientific foundations. We review methodologies for evaluating and measuring the impact of VA technologies as well as taxonomies that have been proposed for various purposes to support the VA community. A cognitive science perspective underlies each of these discussions