Assessing Ideational and Evaluative Skills and Creative Styles and Attitudes

This article describes the rationale for the multiphase creative problem solving process, and reports the findings from an empirical investigation conducted to facilitate the problem solving of managers. The ideational skills of the managers were assessed before and after training in a complete process of creative problem solving, along with their ideational attitudes, creative problem solving style (i.e., generator, conceptualizer, optimizer, or implementor), and evaluative skill (i.e., ability to recognize original ideas). The most important findings indicated that the training had a significant impact on the evaluative accuracy of the managers. They were significantly more accurate in their judgments about original ideas after training, both in their identification of original ideas and their recognition of unoriginal ideas. After training, the managers also gave more solutions and more original solutions to problems. Finally, several variables (e.g., the “preference for active divergence” attitude, and the conceptualizer process style) seemed to moderate the impact of training. Training was therefore effective, with specific effects that can be predicted from pre-training individual differences in attitudes and process style.     

Semantics and verification of monitors and systems of monitors and processes

In this paper we present a sound and complete semantics for the monitor concept of C.A.R. Hoare. First a method for specification of monitors, introduced by O.-J. Dahl, is reviewed. This method is based on the relation between the historic sequence of monitor procedure calls and the historic sequence of monitor procedure exits. Based on such specifications and our new monitor semantics we present a method by which it is possible to prove that a concrete monitor is an implementation of an abstract one. In the last part of the paper an axiomatic semantics for systems of concurrent processes and monitors is introduced. The method supports verification by separation of concerns: Properties of the communication to and from each process are proven in isolation by a usual Hoare style axiomatic semantics, while abstract monitors are also specified in isolation by the method reviewed in the first part of the paper. These properties of the components of the system are then used in a new proof rule to conclude properties of the complete system. Stein Gjessing received a Ph.D. (actually a Dr. philos.) from the University of Oslo (Norway) in 1985. Presently he is an Associate Professor at the Institute of informatics, University of Oslo, Norway. Dr. Gjessings research interests are in the area of concurrent and distributed programming, operating systems, formal specification and verification and programming languages.     

Integrating and automating analysis and optimization

The development of an interface coupling program on personal computers for an analysis software system such as ANSYS, SAP, etc. and an optimization software system, MOST, is presented. By controlling and directing the communications the interface coupler integrates the two programs while retaining their versatility and interactive features. The integrated system is used to solve a numerical example of active noise control for a three-dimensional enclosure, in which an energy density level of control points is minimized by adding the sound source to cancel the unwanted noise. The interface coupling program automates with relatively low cost the iterative process for designing an engineering system, remaining flexible in acoustical modelling and efficient in equation solving. Also, the coupling interface is developed in a general-purpose way so that it can be expanded easily to integrate more analysis software packages of different kinds.     

国内外标准法规比对分析系统设计与实现

为发现我国国家标准与国外发达国家标准法规的差距,从根本上提高我国国家标准的总体质量,提升我国产品的质量安全水平,以关键指标(因子)为核心,研究国内外标准法规比对的工作流程,利用面向对象的方法设计,实现了国内外标准法规比对分析系统。该系统适用于所有产品国内外标准法规的比对工作。     

Rank and select revisited and extended

The deep connection between the Burrows–Wheeler transform (BWT) and the so-called rank and select data structures for symbol sequences is the basis of most successful approaches to compressed text indexing. Rank of a symbol at a given position equals the number of times the symbol appears in the corresponding prefix of the sequence. Select is the inverse, retrieving the positions of the symbol occurrences. It has been shown that improvements to rank/select algorithms, in combination with the BWT, turn into improved compressed text indexes.     

Vignette and exposure calibration and compensation

We discuss calibration and removal of "vignetting" (radial falloff) and exposure (gain) variations from sequences of images. Even when the response curve is known, spatially varying ambiguities prevent us from recovering the vignetting, exposure, and scene radiances uniquely. However, the vignetting and exposure variations can nonetheless be removed from the images without resolving these ambiguities or the previously known scale and gamma ambiguities. Applications include panoramic image mosaics, photometry for material reconstruction, image-based rendering, and preprocessing for correlation-based vision algorithms.     

Geometric and Harmonic Means and Progressions

Geometer Marcus the Marinite explores how the geometric and harmonic means can be employed compositionally within a frame; how means function in the development of organizational field grids; how means work to develop linear perspective and proportional grids.