Guppy: Process-Oriented Programming on Embedded Devices

Guppy is a new and experimental process-oriented programming language, taking much inspiration (and some code-base) from the existing occam-pi language. This paper reports on a variety of aspects related to this, specifically language, compiler and run-time system development, enabling Guppy programs to run on desktop and embedded systems. A native code-generation approach is taken, using C as the intermediate language, and with stack-space requirements determined at compile-time

XRound : A reversible template language and its application in model-based security analysis

Successful analysis of the models used in Model-Driven Development requires the ability to synthesise the results of analysis and automatically integrate these results with the models themselves. This paper presents a reversible template language called XRound which supports round-trip transformations between models and the logic used to encode system properties. A template processor that supports the language is described, and the use of the template language is illustrated by its application in an analysis workbench, designed to support analysis of security properties of UML and MOF-based models. As a result of using reversible templates, it is possible to seamlessly and automatically integrate the results of a security analysis with a model. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Syntactic development in early foreign language learning: Effects of L1 transfer, input and individual factors

This study explores parallels and differences in the comprehension of wh-questions and relative clauses between early foreign-language (FL) learners and monolingual children. We test for (a) effects of syntactic first-language (L1) transfer, (b) the impact of input on syntactic development, and (c) the impact of individual differences on early FL syntactic development. We compare the results to findings in child second language (L2) naturalistic acquisition and adult FL acquisition. Following work on adult FL acquisition, we carried out a picture-based interpretation task with 243 child FL learners in fourth grade at different regular, partial, and high-immersion schools in Germany plus 68 monolingual English children aged 5 to 8 years as controls. The child FL learners display a strong subject-first preference but do not appear to use the L1 syntax in comprehension. Input differences across different schools affect overall accuracy, with students at high-immersion FL schools catching up to monolingual performance within 4 years of learning. Finally, phonological awareness is implicated in both early FL learning and naturalistic child L2 development. These findings suggest that early FL development resembles child L2 acquisition in speed and effects of individual factors, yet is different from adult FL acquisition due to the absence of L1 transfer effects.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

CLIPS: An expert system tool for delivery and training

The C Language Integrated Production System (CLIPS) is a forward chaining rule-based language. The requirements necessary for an expert system tool which is used for development, delivery, and training are examined. Because of its high portability, low cost, and ease of integration with external systems, CLIPS has great potential as an expert system tool for delivery and training. In addition, its representation flexibility, debugging aids, and performance, along with its other strengths, make it a viable alternative for expert system development

An expert system for shuttle and satellite radar tracker scheduling

This expert system automates and optimizes radar tracker selection for shuttle missions. The expert system is written in the FORTRAN and C languages on an HP9000. It is portable to any UNIX machine having both ANSI-77 FORTRAN and C language compilers. It is a rule based expert system that selects tracking stations from the S-band and C-band radar stations and the TDRSS east and TDRSS west satellites under a variety of conditions. The expert system was prototyped on the Symbolics in the Automated Reasoning Tool (ART) and ZetaLisp. After the prototype demonstrated an acceptable automation of the process of selecting tracking stations to support the orbit determination requirements of Shuttle missions, the basic ART rules of the prototype were ported to the HP9000 computer using the CLIPS language. CLIPS is a forward-chaining rule-based expert system language written in C. Prior to the development of this expert system the selection process was a tedious manual process and expensive in terms of human resources. Manual tracking station selection required from 1 to 2 man weeks per mission; whereas the expert system can complete the selection process in about 2 hours