Visualization of Concurrent Computations: Doctor of Science Dissertation Proposal

Visualization, defined as the graphical representation of symbolic objects and processes, is recognized as an important tool to aid human understanding. This is particularly true in the area of program visualization, which uses images to illustrate the execution of programs. This proposal describes research to investigate the visualization of concurrent computations. The research has two major goals: the development of a model of visualization suitable for concurrent computations, and the development of methodology for constructing visualizations. The proposed visualization model treats visualization as a function from the state of the computation to an image. This differs significantly from the approach used by existing (single-process) visualization systems, but seems highly suitable for concurrent computations. The proposed methodology uses the concepts of program correctness to identify the key properties of a computation and suggest methods of visualizing these properties

Visualizing Concurrent Computations

This paper describes the underlying model for a visualization environment concerned with exploring, monitoring, and presenting concurrent computations. The model is declarative in the sense that visualization is treated as the composition of several mappings which, as a whole, map computational states into full-color images of a 3-D geometric world. The mappings defining the visualizations are specified using a rule-based notation. The visualization methodology is proof-based, i.e., it captures abstract formal properties of programs (e.g. safety and progress) rather than operational details. An algorithm for termination detection in diffusing computations is used to illustrate the specification method and to demonstrate its conceptual elegance and flexibility

Program Visualization: The Art of Mapping Programs to Pictures

In this paper program visualization is defined as a mapping from programs to graphical representations. Simple forms of program visualization are frequently encountered in software engineering. For this reason current advances in program visualization are likely to influence future developments concerning software engineering tools and environments. This paper provides a new taxonomy of program visualization research. The proposed taxonomy becomes the vehicle through which we carry out a systematic review of current systems, techniques, trends, and ideas in program visualization

The Death of Roy Lee Centers

Be it remembered. A simple command yet, in this case, an introduction spoken by the judge in the Breathitt County, Ky., trial of William (Bill) R. Hurst, who killed Roy Lee Centers, a native of Jackson, Kentuck

Declarative Visualization in the Shared Dataspace Paradigm

This paper is concerned with the use of program visualization as a means for the understanding, debugging, and monitoring of large-scale concurrent programs. Following an overview of the shared dataspace paradigm and the declarative approach to visualization, the paper discusses: (1) mechanisms for specifying declarative visualization in the shared dataspace paradigm and ways of relating the specifications to program verification; (2) a computational model which provides a unified framework for comparing both visual and nonvisual algorithms; and (3) strategies for implementing declarative visualization on parallel machines

A Transaction System for the NCUBE

We present the design of a transaction system which supports tuple-oriented database operations in the concurrent environment. An implementation of this system for the NCUBE Corporation NCUBE-7 hypercube processor is described. The implementation includes both the basic kernel to support the database operations and two software packages to assist users of the system