Book reviews

Laver, Murray Information Technology: Agent of Change. 189 pages, hardcopy 39.50, paperback 14.95, Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1989 ISBN 0 521 35035 2 (hbk.), ISBN 0 521 35955 2

Edited by Long, John and Whitefield, Andy. Cambridge Series on Human‐Computer Interaction 1: Cognitive Ergonomics and Human‐Computer Interaction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1989), pp. 259. $49.50, ISBN O‐521–37179–1.     

Book reviews

Monk, A., Diaper, D., and Harrison, M. D. (1992). People and Computers VII. 534 pages, US$69.96: Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. (ISBN 0–521–44591–4)

Duffy, T. M., Palmer, J. E., and Mehlenbacher, B. (1992). Online Help: Design and Evaluation. 260 pages, US$55.00 (cloth) US$26.50 (paper): Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corp. (ISBN 0–89391–848–2)     

Dretske and Informational Closure

Minds and Machines - Christoph Jäger (Erkenntnis 61:187–201, 2004) has argued that Dretske’s (Knowledge and the flow of Information, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1981) information-based...     

Transport for the elderly and the handicapped

This paper is a postcript to the International Conference on Transport for Elderly and Handicapped Persons held at Cambridge University from 4–6 April 1978. The author was one of the organisers and discusses in this paper the following issues which were of central interest at the conference: what is the rationale underlying the provision of transport for the elderly and the handicapped, how can the travel patterns of the elderly and the handicapped be characterised, what are the principal means of transport which the elderly and the handicapped use in urban areas, and what are their advantages and disadvantages from an economic, social and ergonomics point of view?The next International Conference on Transport for Elderly and Handicapped Persons will be held at Churchill College, Cambridge, from 14–16 July 1981. This paper will serve as a reference point for that conference and it will be interesting to see what advances, if any, have been made over the three years intervening between the two conferences, in understanding and solving the transport problems of the elderly and the handicapped.     

Book reviews

Foley, James D., van Dam, Andrles, Feiner, Steven K., and Hughes, John. Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice (2nd Ed.), Reading, MA: Addison‐Wesley (1990), pp. 1774. $59.95 (U.S. dollars), ISBN 0–201–12110–7.

Berry, Dianne and Hart, Anna (Eds.). Expert Systems: Human Issues. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (1990), pp. 263. $35.00 (U.S. dollars), ISBN 0–262–02307–5.     

Schedule of Events 2010

Jirotka, M., and Goguen, J. A. (1994). Requirements Engineering: Social and Technical Issues. 296 pages, US$52.50. San Diego: Academic Press, Inc. (ISBN 0–1238–5335–4)

Dillon, A. (1994). Designing Usable Electronic Text: Ergonomie Aspects of Human Information Usage. 175 pages, Cloth $75.00, Paper $32.00. Bristol, PA: Taylor &; Francis, Ltd. (ISBN 0–7484–0113‐X)

Oppermann, R. (1994). Adaptive User Support. 253 pages, US$49.95. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. (ISBN 0–8058–1655–0)

Landauer, T. K. (1995). The Trouble with Computers. 296 pages, US$27.50. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. (ISBN 0–262–12186–7).

Weimer, J. (1995). Research Techniques In Human Engineering. 504 pages, US$63.75. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall PTR. (ISBN 0–13–097072–7).     

Approximation Algorithms for Minimizing Edge Crossings in Radial Drawings

We study a crossing minimization problem of drawing a bipartite graph with a radial drawing of two orbits. Radial drawings are one of well-known drawing conventions in social network analysis and visualization, in particular, displaying centrality indices of actors (Wasserman and Faust, Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994). The main problem in this paper is called the one-sided radial crossing minimization, if the positions of vertices in the outer orbit are fixed. The problem is known to be NP-hard (Bachmaier, IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. 13, 583–594, 2007), and a number of heuristics are available (Bachmaier, IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. 13, 583–594, 2007). However, there is no approximation algorithm for the crossing minimization problem in radial drawings. We present the first polynomial time constant-factor approximation algorithm for the one-sided radial crossing minimization problem.     

Grounds for Trust: Essential Epistemic Opacity and Computational Reliabilism

Several philosophical issues in connection with computer simulations rely on the assumption that results of simulations are trustworthy. Examples of these include the debate on the experimental role of computer simulations (Parker in Synthese 169(3):483–496, 2009; Morrison in Philos Stud 143(1):33–57, 2009), the nature of computer data (Barberousse and Vorms, in: Durán, Arnold (eds) Computer simulations and the changing face of scientific experimentation, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Barcelona, 2013; Humphreys, in: Durán, Arnold (eds) Computer simulations and the changing face of scientific experimentation, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Barcelona, 2013), and the explanatory power of computer simulations (Krohs in Int Stud Philos Sci 22(3):277–292, 2008; Durán in Int Stud Philos Sci 31(1):27–45, 2017). The aim of this article is to show that these authors are right in assuming that results of computer simulations are to be trusted when computer simulations are reliable processes. After a short reconstruction of the problem of epistemic opacity, the article elaborates extensively on computational reliabilism, a specified form of process reliabilism with computer simulations located at the center. The article ends with a discussion of four sources for computational reliabilism, namely, verification and validation, robustness analysis for computer simulations, a history of (un)successful implementations, and the role of expert knowledge in simulations.     

Courseware reviews Ed. Stephen R. Graubard. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988, 311 pp. $9.95

Courseware reviewsEd. Stephen R. Graubard. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988, 311 pp. $9.95     

A leader election algorithm for dynamic networks with causal clocks

An algorithm for electing a leader in an asynchronous network with dynamically changing communication topology is presented. The algorithm ensures that, no matter what pattern of topology changes occurs, if topology changes cease, then eventually every connected component contains a unique leader. The algorithm combines ideas from the Temporally Ordered Routing Algorithm for mobile ad hoc networks (Park and Corson in Proceedings of the 16th IEEE Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), pp. 1405–1413 (1997) with a wave algorithm (Tel in Introduction to distributed algorithms, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2000), all within the framework of a height-based mechanism for reversing the logical direction of communication topology links (Gafni and Bertsekas in IEEE Trans Commun C–29(1), 11–18 1981). Moreover, a generic representation of time is used, which can be implemented using totally-ordered values that preserve the causality of events, such as logical clocks and perfect clocks. A correctness proof for the algorithm is provided, and it is ensured that in certain well-behaved situations, a new leader is not elected unnecessarily, that is, the algorithm satisfies a stability condition.     

Towards simulating urban canyon circulations with a 2D lattice Boltzmann model

The Lattice Boltzmann (LB) method is a novel fluid modelling technique developed from cellular automata. Instead of numerically solving the continuum Navier–Stokes equations, it simulates the interactions of mesoscopic particle populations p_α using discrete speeds and positions to obtain the macroscopic velocity, density and temperature fields. Localised at neighbouring grid nodes, the method handles complex geometries and multiple fluids more easily than traditional continuum CFD methods.Rothman and Zaleski (Lattice-Gas Cellular Automata: Simple Models of Complex Hydrodynamics (1997) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) discuss LB method theory and development in more detail.To demonstrate the power of the technique, a 2D LB model is first used to perform urban canyon configuration studies at Reynolds number Re=100 for Height to Width (H/W) ratios from 0.125 to 2. Then, thermal lid driven cavity simulations for Re=100 and Rayleigh number Ra=2000 are performed for different locations of a relatively hot wall. The simulated flow fields appear qualitatively consistent with physical flows observed in wind tunnel and field studies, and indicate that LB methods generate results comparable to traditional CFD methods for the selected flow situations.     

Weakly distributive domains (II)

In our previous work (Inform. and Comput., 2005, 202: 87–103), we have shown that for any ω-algebraic meet-cpo D, if all higher-order stable function spaces built from D are ω-algebraic, then D is finitary. This accomplishes the first of a possible, two-step process in solving the problem raised (LNCS, 1991, 530: 16–33; Domains and lambda-calculi, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998) whether the category of stable bifinite domains of Amadio-Droste-Göbel (LNCS, 1991, 530: 16–33; Theor. Comput. Sci., 1993, 111: 89–101) is the largest cartesian closed full subcategory within the category of ω-algebraic meet-cpos with stable functions. This paper presents the results of the second step, which is to show that for any ω-algebraic meet-cpo D satisfying axioms M and I to be contained in a cartesian closed full sub-category using ω-algebraic meet-cpos with stable functions, it must not violate MI^∞. We introduce a new class of domains called weakly distributive domains and show that for these domains to be in a cartesian closed category using ω-algebraic meet-cpos, property MI^∞ must not be violated. Further, we demonstrate that principally distributive domains (those for which each principle ideal is distributive) form a proper subclass of weakly distributive domains, and Birkhoff’s M ₃ and N ₅ (Introduction to Lattices and order, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002) are weakly distributive (but non-distributive). Then, we establish characterization results for weakly distributive domains. We also introduce the notion of meet-generators in constructing stable functions and show that if an ω-algebraic meet-cpo D contains an infinite number of meet-generators, then [D → D] fails I. However, the original problem of Amadio and Curien remains open.     

The emergence of computing science research and teaching atCambridge, 1936-49

The motivation behind the creation of the Cambridge University Mathematical Laboratory and its original terms of reference are described. The changes to the laboratory caused by World War II are discussed. The Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory was reestablished in 1945 under the directorship of M.V. Wilkes. The ways in which Wilkes developed the work of the laboratory and built up a research team to work on the EDSAC project, which established Cambridge as a major center of computer research, are considered     

Unifying Conceptual Spaces: Concept Formation in Musical Creative Systems

We examine Gärdenfors’ theory of conceptual spaces, a geometrical form of knowledge representation (Conceptual spaces: The geometry of thought, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2000), in the context of the general Creative Systems Framework introduced by Wiggins (J Knowl Based Syst 19(7):449–458, 2006a; New Generation Comput 24(3):209–222, 2006b). Gärdenfors’ theory offers a way of bridging the traditional divide between symbolic and sub-symbolic representations, as well as the gap between representational formalism and meaning as perceived by human minds. We discuss how both these qualities may be advantageous from the point of view of artificial creative systems. We take music as our example domain, and discuss how a range of musical qualities may be instantiated as conceptual spaces, and present a detailed conceptual space formalisation of musical metre.     

Early traces of usability as a science and as a profession

Shackel’s paper [Shackel, B., 1991. Usability – context, framework, definition, design and evaluation. In: Shcakel, B., Richardson, S. (Eds.), Human Factors for Informatics Usability. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK] is reviewed in an attempt to assess his contribution to the development of usability as a science and as a profession. Usability related research is first situated in the period around 1990. The contributions to usability as a science then are addressed via Professor Shackel’s definition and evaluation of usability. Finally, his contribution toward usability as a profession is acknowledged via his view of usability in the light of wider business goals.     

Movement Awareness for Ubiquitous Game Control

This paper describes a sensing system for recognising and characterising human movements and its application to ubiquitous gaming. In particular this paper considers the control of computer games through players interacting with the physical environment around them in a natural and appropriate manner. This pushes the interface into the environment, and pulls ubiquitous computing into the game. This is achieved using a sentient computing system. Such a system senses the location, motions, actions and even physiological responses of users. This sensory data can be used to interface and control a game. A good example is 3D first-person games and we demonstrate a system in which actions in the game are mapped to similar actions in the real world. Correspondence to: R. Headon, Laboratory for Communications Engineering, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK. Email: rph25@cam.ac.uk     

A general-purpose text editor for OS/360

The IBM 370/165 system at Cambridge provides batch and interactive computing facilities under OS 360/MVT with the Time Sharing Option (TSO). The Cambridge text editor, EDIT, provides comprehensive file manlpulation facilities in a unified manner for both batch and interactive users.     

Conway's problem for three-word sets

We prove two results on commutation of languages. First, we show that the maximal language commuting with a three-element language, i.e. its centralizer, is rational, thus giving an affirmative answer to a special case of a problem proposed by Conway in 1971. Second, we characterize all languages commuting with a three-element code. The characterization is similar to the one proved by Bergman for polynomials over noncommuting variables (see Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 137 (1969) 327 and Algebraic Combinatorics on Words, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000): A language commutes with a three-element code X if and only if it is a union of powers of X.     

Numerical simulation of 3D fluid–structure interaction flow using an immersed object method with overlapping grids

The newly developed immersed object method (IOM) [Tai CH, Zhao Y, Liew KM. Parallel computation of unsteady incompressible viscous flows around moving rigid bodies using an immersed object method with overlapping grids. J Comput Phys 2005; 207(1): 151–72] is extended for 3D unsteady flow simulation with fluid–structure interaction (FSI), which is made possible by combining it with a parallel unstructured multigrid Navier–Stokes solver using a matrix-free implicit dual time stepping and finite volume method [Tai CH, Zhao Y, Liew KM. Parallel computation of unsteady three-dimensional incompressible viscous flow using an unstructured multigrid method. In: The second M.I.T. conference on computational fluid and solid mechanics, June 17–20, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA, 2003; Tai CH, Zhao Y, Liew KM. Parallel computation of unsteady three-dimensional incompressible viscous flow using an unstructured multigrid method, Special issue on “Preconditioning methods: algorithms, applications and software environments. Comput Struct 2004; 82(28): 2425–36]. This uniquely combined method is then employed to perform detailed study of 3D unsteady flows with complex FSI. In the IOM, a body force term F is introduced into the momentum equations during the artificial compressibility (AC) sub-iterations so that a desired velocity distribution V₀ can be obtained on and within the object boundary, which needs not coincide with the grid, by adopting the direct forcing method. An object mesh is immersed into the flow domain to define the boundary of the object. The advantage of this is that bodies of almost arbitrary shapes can be added without grid restructuring, a procedure which is often time-consuming and computationally expensive. It has enabled us to perform complex and detailed 3D unsteady blood flow and blood–leaflets interaction in a mechanical heart valve (MHV) under physiological conditions.     

Model checking: recent improvements and applications

Model checking (Baier and Katoen in Principles of model checking, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2008; Clarke et al. in Model checking, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2001) is an automatic technique to formally verify that a given specification of a concurrent system meets given functional properties. Its use has been demonstrated many times over the years. Key characteristics that make the method so appealing are its level of automaticity, its ability to determine the absence of errors in the system (contrary to testing techniques) and the fact that it produces counter-examples when errors are detected, that clearly demonstrate not only that an error is present, but also how the error can be produced. The main drawback of model checking is its limited scalability, and for this reason, research on reducing the computational effort has received much attention over the last decades. Besides the verification of qualitative functional properties, the model checking technique can also be applied for other types of analyses, such as planning and the verification of quantitative properties. We briefly discuss several contributions in the model checking field that address both its scalability and its applicability to perform planning and quantitative analysis. In particular, we introduce six papers selected from the 23rd International SPIN Symposium on Model Checking Software (SPIN 2016).