SCOL—A high-level structured language for process control

A high-level process control language, SCOL, was developed to be used in a multi-purpose process control system. Time-dependent process control programming becomes extremely easy using a unique timing attribute mechanism, making the language suitable for real-time applications, where the time factor is a dominant one, while the computation part is of lesser importance. A conventional microcomputer system is used to program the control system for the specific application via an Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory (EPROM). The current release of SCOL is implemented in BASIC, for a control system based on low power 8-bit microprocessor.     

Very high-level language design: A viewpoint

Recent developments in very high-level language design indicate that these languages hold great promise for improving the level of man-machine communication, and hence improving computer and programmer utilization. (Essentially, a very high-level language one which allows the programmer to specify what to do, rather than how to do it.) This paper surveys these developments, outlines the goals to which an “ideal” very high-level language should aspire, and then presents the design of a very high-level language that would meet these goals. This design is presented in the interest of laying bare some basic design and implementation questions that are inherent to such an achievement. The paper then discusses these questions, indicating both old and new research problems which they suggest.     

FORK: A high-level language for PRAMs

We present a new programming language designed to allow the convenient expression of algorithms for a parallel random access machine (PRAM). The language attempts to satisfy two potentially conflicting goals: On the one hand, it should be simple and clear enough to serve as a vehicle for human-to-human communication of algorithmic ideas. On the other hand, it should be automatically translatable to efficient machine (i.e. PRAM) code, and it should allow precise statements to be made about the amount of resources (primarily time) consumed by a given program. In the sequential setting, both objectives are reasonably well met by the Algol-like languages, e.g. with the RAM as the underlying machine model, but we are not aware of any language that allows a satisfactory expression of typical PRAM algorithms. Our contribution should be seen as a modest attempt to fill this gap.     

SML: A structured musical language

Most of the problems with existing computer musicological systems have to do with the lack of capability for capturing the important notion of musical structure. In the new language SML (AStructuredMusicalLanguage), this aspect is given foremost attention as a technique for encoding a musical score in a clear and vivid form. Musical structures are patterned after the control structures of Pascal, together with instrument representations modeled on the idea of a Pascal record type. A complete example of the SML encoding of a Schumann song is included.Ronald E. Prather is the Caruth Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas 78284. Stephen Elliott is a doctoral candidate in Computer Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309.     

A high-level job control language

A high-level language approach has been used to define a powerful, flexible and machine-independent control language, in which many of the desirable facilities that are available in modern programming languages have been included. This paper describes the language and its application to the problems of job control, and suggests its further use in a multi-machine environment.     

A parallel language and its programming system for heterogeneous networks

The paper presents a new parallel language, mpC, designed specially for programming high‐performance computations on heterogeneous networks of computers, as well as its supportive programming environment. The main idea underlying mpC is that an mpC application explicitly defines an abstract network and distributes data, computations and communications over the network. The mpC programming environment uses, at run time, this information as well as information on any real executing network in order to map the application to the real network in such a way that ensures the efficient execution of the application on this real network. Experience of using mpC for solving both regular and irregular real‐life problems on networks of heterogeneous computers is also presented. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Jade: a high-level, machine-independent language for parallelprogramming

Jade, a high-level parallel programming language for managing coarse-grained parallelism, is discussed. Jade simplifies programming by providing sequential-execution and shared-address-space abstractions. It is also platform-independent; the same Jade program runs on uniprocessors, multiprocessors, and heterogeneous networks of machines. An example that illustrates how Jade programmers express irregular, dynamically determined concurrency and how the implementation exploits this source of concurrency is presented. A digital video imaging program that runs on a high-resolution video system and several other examples of Jade applications are described     

VVSL: A language for structured VDM specifications

VVSL is a VDM specification language of the British School with modularisation constructs allowing sharing of hidden state variables and parameterisation constructs for structuring specifications, and with constructs for expressing temporal aspects of the concurrent execution of operations which interfere via state variables. The modularisation and parameterisation constructs have been inspired by the kernel design language COLD-K from the ESPRIT project 432: METEOR, and the constructs for expressing temporal aspects by various temporal logics based on linear and discrete time. VVSL is provided with a well-defined semantics by defining a translation to COLD-K extended with constructs which are required for translation of the VVSL constructs for expressing temporal aspects.In this paper, the syntax for the modularisation and parameterisation constructs of VVSL is outlined. Their meaning is informally described by giving an intuitive explanation and by outlining the translation to COLD-K. It is explained in some detail how sharing of hidden state variables is modelled. Examples of the use of the modularisation and parameterisation constructs are also given. These examples are based on a formal definition of the relational data model. With respect to the constructs for expressing temporal aspects, the ideas underlying the use of temporal formulae in VVSL are briefly outlined and a simple example is given.     

The BLAZE language: A parallel language for scientific programming

Programming multiprocessor parallel architectures is a complex task. This paper describes a block-structured scientific programming language, BLAZE, designed to simplify this task. BLAZE contains array arithmetic, ‘forall’ loops, and APL-style accumulation operators, which allow natural expression of fine grained parallelism. It also employs an applicative or functional procedure invocation mechanism, which makes it easy for compilers to extract coarse grained parallelism using machine specific program restructuring. Thus BLAZE should allow one to achieve highly parallel execution on multiprocessor architectures, while still providing the user with conceptually sequential control flow.

A central goal in the design of BLAZE is portability across a broad range of parallel architectures. The multiple levels of parallelism present in BLAZE code, in principle, allow a compiler to extract the types of parallelism appropriate for the given architecture, while neglecting the remainder. This paper describes the features of BLAZE, and show how this language would be used in typical scientific programming.     

A structured approach to language design

This report is an attempt at systematizing a set of ground rules for high-level language design. It recommends the use of a hierarchical semantic model schema. HGL, in a step by step, top-down approach imposing more and more structure on the language components as the design becomes solidified. The approach is demonstrated by showing the stepwise design of the high-level language, GRAAL. The method recommended is divided into three major phases. The first is an informal one. The second is encoding the language components into a very high-level model. This high-level design allows a redesign of language components before they have been specified at too detailed a level. The third phase is to design the compiler in HGL using the final language design.     

A Structured Temporal Logic Language:XYZ/SE

In order to enhance the readability and to simplify the verification of temporal logic programs in the XYZ system,we propose a structured temporal logic language called XYZ/SE,based on XYZ/BE which is the basis language of the XYZ system.A set of proof rules are given and proved to be sound and adequate for proving the partial correctness of XYZ/SE programs in a compositional way.Moreover,we show that every XYZ/BE program can be transformed into an equivalent XYZ/SE program.So we have developed a general conpositional verification method in the XYZ system concerning the sequential case.     

P3Stor: A parallel, durable flash-based SSD for enterprise-scale storage systems

Driven by data-intensive applications, flash-based solid state drives (SSDs) have become increasingly popular in enterprise-scale storage systems. Flash memory exhibits inherent parallelism. However, existing solid state drives have not fully exploited this superiority. We propose P3Stor, a parallel solid state storage architecture that makes full use of flash memory by utilizing module- and bus-level parallelisms to increase average bandwidth and employing chip-level interleaving to hide I/O latency. To im...     

A language learning support system using course-centered ontology and its evaluation

This paper presents a course-centered ontology for assisting learning support systems to embody the relations among knowledge points and also among the learning materials for those knowledge points. An “individual-class-individual” ontology design (first an individual-class design, then an innovative design about relations among bottom individuals), was applied to the construction of a course-centered ontology for an existing Japanese grammar course. Furthermore, a customizable language learning support system was built to manipulate the course-centered ontology to provide an interface for the learning objects arrangement which displays the visual representation of knowledge points and their relations. The intention underlying the development of the system is to encourage instructors to orient their teaching materials to specific knowledge points and even directly to relations between knowledge points. With these orientations, the learning support system is able to provide an environment in which learners can readily distinguish between related knowledge points. Finally, based on the result of a preliminary evaluation, a study to explore the impact of learning styles and learning habits on learning performance was conducted to further evaluate our ontology-based learning support system. The results of the study suggest three main points: (a) the experimental students who learned with our system achieved significantly better learning achievement than those who just did self-study with textbooks after studying the same target contents for 60 mins; (b) the learning achievement of experimental group was not related to either their learning style in Sequential/Global dimension or their habit of “learning from comparison”; (c) in terms of the learning perception of experimental group, compared to “Sequential learners”, most “Global learners” had a stronger feeling that the comparison function is useful in improving their learning performance, and the learners who don't habitually “learning from comparison” were more likely to suffer from lack of the attention and feel more pressure than those who do habitually “learning from comparison”.     

Staple,an experimental structured programming language

STAPLE is a structured programming language with nested block structure in the source language to indicate flow of control. The semantics of the non-control structures are essentially the same as FORTRAN. The design goals were an easily implemented, easily modified tool for experiments and demonstrations of structured versus unstructured programming techniques.     

A language for high-level description of adaptive web systems

Adaptive Web systems (AWS) are Web-based systems that can adapt their features such as, presentation, content, and structure, based on users’ behaviour and preferences, device capabilities, and environment attributes. A framework was developed in our research group to provide the necessary components and protocols for the development of adaptive Web systems; however, there were several issues and shortcomings (e.g. low productivity, lack of verification mechanisms, etc.) in using the framework that inspired the development of a domain-specific language for the framework. This paper focuses on the proposal, design, and implementation of AWL, the Adaptive Web Language, which is used to develop adaptive Web systems within our framework. Not only does AWL address the existing issues in the framework, but it also offers mechanisms to increase software quality attributes, especially, reusability. An example application named PENS (a personalized e-News system) is explained and implemented in AWL. AWL has been designed based on the analysis of the adaptive Web domain, having taken into account the principles of reuse-based software engineering (product-lines), domain-specific languages, and aspect-oriented programming. Specially, a novel design decision, inspired by aspect-oriented programming paradigm, allows separate specification of presentation features in an application from its adaptation features. The AWL’s design decisions and their benefits are explained.     

The C programming language: Popularity grows for the high-level assembly language

The programming language C is becoming increasingly popular. It has many advantages over PASCAL and BASIC for use with PCs. It is known as a high-level assembly language, and provides useful tools for programmers.