Users guide for information retrieval using APL

A Programming Language (APL) is a precise, concise, and powerful computer programming language. Several features make APL useful to managers and other potential computer users. APL is interactive; therefore, the user can communicate with his program or data base in near real-time. This, coupled with the fact that APL has excellent debugging features, reduces program checkout time to minutes or hours rather than days or months. Of particular importance is the fact that APL can be utilized as a management science tool using such techniques as operations research, statistical analysis, and forecasting. The gap between the scientist and the manager could be narrowed by showing how APL can be used to do what the scientists and the manager each need to do, retrieve information. Sometimes, the information needs to be retrieved rapidly. In this case APL is ideally suited for this challenge

Preface Volume 30, Issue 3

AbstractOne of the main areas of research in logic programming is the design and implementation of sequential and parallel (constraint) logic programming systems. This research goes broadly from the design and specification of novel implementation technology to its actual evaluation in real life situations. A series of workshops on Implementations of Logic Programming Systems, previously held in Budapest (1993), Ithaca (1994), Portland (1995), Bonn (1996), Port Jefferson (1997), Manchester (1998) and Las Cruces (1999) provided a forum for ongoing research on the design and implementation of sequential and parallel (constraint) logic programming systems.This volume contains a collection of papers presented at the Workshop on Parallelism and Implementation Technology for (Constraint) Logic Programming, held in Las Cruces on December 1st, 1999, in conjunction with ICLP'99. The workshop was sponsored and organised by COMPULOG AMERICAS. The workshop also received support from the Association for Logic Programming and from the Department of Computer Science, New Mexico State University.Papers from both academia and industry were invited. Preference was given to the analysis and description of implemented systems (or currently under implementation) and their associated techniques, problems found in their development or design, and steps taken towards the solution of these problems.Topics included, but were not limited to: •standard and non—standard sequential implementation schemes (e.g., generalization/modification of WAM, translation to C, etc.);implementation of parallel logic programming systems;balance between compile-time effort and run-time machinery;techniques for the implementation of different declarative programming paradigms based on, or extending, logic programming (e.g., constraint logic programming, concurrent constraint languages, equational-logic languages);performance evaluation of sequential and parallel logic programming systems, both through benchmarking and using real world applications;other implementation-related issues, such as memory management, register allocation, use of global optimisations, etc.We were very fortunate to have so many interesting research papers, ranging over widely different subjects and giving a broad coverage of current research in sequential and parallel implementation of logic programming systems. Papers on sequential logic programming systems, focus on varied topics: constraint evaluation, support for extensions to logic programming, and abstract machines for performance evaluation. Papers on parallel logic programming systems also focus on diverse topics ranging from distributed implementations, garbage collection, to optimisations for exploiting and-or parallelism.The editors would like to thank all authors that chose to submit their work to this book, and also for their cooperation in making this document possible. We would also like to thank all referees involved in assessing the papers in this special volume.This volume will be published as volume 30, Issue 3 in the series Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science (ENTCS). This series is published electronically through the facilities of Elsevier Science B.V. and its auspices. The volumes in the ENTCS series can be accessed at the URL http://www.elsevier.nl/locate/entcs March 14, 2000Horst Reiche

Using Active Learning and the Wright State Model for Engineering Mathematics Education to Cultivate Academic Success among First-Year Engineering Students

A mid-sized private university in the Southeast has created an experimental first-year engineering course based on the Wright State Model for Engineering Mathematics Education. The course aims to increase student retention, motivation, and success in engineering through an application-oriented, hands-on introduction to engineering mathematics. Therefore, active learning techniques were used throughout the course. Students provided preliminary qualitative data via end-of-course evaluations. Preliminary quantitative data included student course grades, cumulative GPAs (CGPAs), and retention rates. Thus far, students taking the experimental firstyear engineering course believe they gain confidence and skills such as problem-solving, time management, study habits, computer programming, as well as real-world applications of math and physics. Thus far, over 80% of students have earned a grade of C or better in the experimental first-year engineering course along with their pre-calculus or calculus class. More than 80% of students have also maintained a CGPA above a 2.0

Teaching Software Engineering through Robotics

This paper presents a newly-developed robotics programming course and reports the initial results of software engineering education in robotics context. Robotics programming, as a multidisciplinary course, puts equal emphasis on software engineering and robotics. It teaches students proper software engineering -- in particular, modularity and documentation -- by having them implement four core robotics algorithms for an educational robot. To evaluate the effect of software engineering education in robotics context, we analyze pre- and post-class survey data and the four assignments our students completed for the course. The analysis suggests that the students acquired an understanding of software engineering techniques and principles

Energy Saving Techniques for Phase Change Memory (PCM)

In recent years, the energy consumption of computing systems has increased and a large fraction of this energy is consumed in main memory. Towards this, researchers have proposed use of non-volatile memory, such as phase change memory (PCM), which has low read latency and power; and nearly zero leakage power. However, the write latency and power of PCM are very high and this, along with limited write endurance of PCM present significant challenges in enabling wide-spread adoption of PCM. To address this, several architecture-level techniques have been proposed. In this report, we review several techniques to manage power consumption of PCM. We also classify these techniques based on their characteristics to provide insights into them. The aim of this work is encourage researchers to propose even better techniques for improving energy efficiency of PCM based main memory.Comment: Survey, phase change RAM (PCRAM

Critters in the Classroom: A 3D Computer-Game-Like Tool for Teaching Programming to Computer Animation Students

The brewing crisis threatening computer science education is a well documented fact. To counter this and to increase enrolment and retention in computer science related degrees, it has been suggested to make programming "more fun" and to offer "multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary programs" [Carter 2006]. The Computer Visualisation and Animation undergraduate degree at the National Centre for Computer Animation (Bournemouth University) is such a programme. Computer programming forms an integral part of the curriculum of this technical arts degree, and as educators we constantly face the challenge of having to encourage our students to engage with the subject. We intend to address this with our C-Sheep system, a reimagination of the "Karel the Robot" teaching tool [Pattis 1981], using modern 3D computer game graphics that today's students are familiar with. This provides a game-like setting for writing computer programs, using a task-specific set of instructions which allow users to take control of virtual entities acting within a micro world, effectively providing a graphical representation of the algorithms used. Whereas two decades ago, students would be intrigued by a 2D top-down representation of the micro world, the lack of the visual gimmickry found in modern computer games for representing the virtual world now makes it extremely difficult to maintain the interest of students from today's "Plug&Play generation". It is therefore especially important to aim for a 3D game-like representation which is "attractive and highly motivating to today's generation of media-conscious students" [Moskal et al. 2004]. Our system uses a modern, platform independent games engine, capable of presenting a visually rich virtual environment using a state of the art rendering engine of a type usually found in entertainment systems. Our aim is to entice students to spend more time programming, by providing them with an enjoyable experience. This paper provides a discussion of the 3D computer game technology employed in our system and presents examples of how this can be exploited to provide engaging exercises to create a rewarding learning experience for our students

Applying Formal Methods to Networking: Theory, Techniques and Applications

Despite its great importance, modern network infrastructure is remarkable for the lack of rigor in its engineering. The Internet which began as a research experiment was never designed to handle the users and applications it hosts today. The lack of formalization of the Internet architecture meant limited abstractions and modularity, especially for the control and management planes, thus requiring for every new need a new protocol built from scratch. This led to an unwieldy ossified Internet architecture resistant to any attempts at formal verification, and an Internet culture where expediency and pragmatism are favored over formal correctness. Fortunately, recent work in the space of clean slate Internet design---especially, the software defined networking (SDN) paradigm---offers the Internet community another chance to develop the right kind of architecture and abstractions. This has also led to a great resurgence in interest of applying formal methods to specification, verification, and synthesis of networking protocols and applications. In this paper, we present a self-contained tutorial of the formidable amount of work that has been done in formal methods, and present a survey of its applications to networking.Comment: 30 pages, submitted to IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorial

The EDAM Project: Mining Atmospheric Aerosol Datasets

Data mining has been a very active area of research in the database, machine learning, and mathematical programming communities in recent years. EDAM (Exploratory Data Analysis and Management) is a joint project between researchers in Atmospheric Chemistry and Computer Science at Carleton College and the University of Wisconsin-Madison that aims to develop data mining techniques for advancing the state of the art in analyzing atmospheric aerosol datasets. There is a great need to better understand the sources, dynamics, and compositions of atmospheric aerosols. The traditional approach for particle measurement, which is the collection of bulk samples of particulates on filters, is not adequate for studying particle dynamics and real-time correlations. This has led to the development of a new generation of real-time instruments that provide continuous or semi-continuous streams of data about certain aerosol properties. However, these instruments have added a significant level of complexity to atmospheric aerosol data, and dramatically increased the amounts of data to be collected, managed, and analyzed. Our abilit y to integrate the data from all of these new and complex instruments now lags far behind our data-collection capabilities, and severely limits our ability to understand the data and act upon it in a timely manner. In this paper, we present an overview of the EDAM project. The goal of the project, which is in its early stages, is to develop novel data mining algorithms and approaches to managing and monitoring multiple complex data streams. An important objective is data quality assurance, and real-time data mining offers great potential. The approach that we take should also provide good techniques to deal with gas-phase and semi-volatile data. While atmospheric aerosol analysis is an important and challenging domain that motivates us with real problems and serves as a concrete test of our results, our objective is to develop techniques that have broader applicability, and to explore some fundamental challenges in data mining that are not specific to any given application domain