A little knowledge about software

Software engineering is still a young discipline. Software development group managers must keep their groups current with this dynamic body of knowledge as it evolves. There are two basic approaches: require staff to have both application expertise and software expertise, or create a software cell. The latter approach runs the risk of two communities not communicating well, although it might make staying abreast of changes in software engineering easier. The first approach should work better than it does today if some new educational patterns are put in place. For example, we could start treating software more like mathematics, introducing more software courses into undergraduate programs in other disciplines. Managers must also focus on the best way to develop software expertise for existing staff. Staff returning to school for a master's in software engineering can acquire a broad understanding of the field, but at a substantial cost in both time and effort. Short courses call help to fill this gap, but most short courses are skill based, whereas a deeper kind of learning is needed. As the first step, however, managers must assess software's impact on their bottom line deliverables. It might surprise them how much they depend on software expertise to deliver their products.     

A funny thing happened on the way to the marketplace [security problems]

The security community tends to define problems and solutions in terms of technology. However, real-world systems are more than just technology, and if we want to secure them, we also must consider their nontechnological aspects. The article explores this marketplace dimension of building secure systems in the real world includes the views of Jothy Rosenberg, founder, CEO and CTO of Service Integrity, a Web-service monitoring and analysis software firm, and Adam Golodner, Associate Director for Policy at the Institute for Security Technology Studies.     

What kind of thing is a concept?

We discuss several features of concepts used for common knowledge and argue that these features are not superficial, lexical level language-dependent issues, but deep characteristics of the knowledge itself. It is thus necessary to build knowledge representation systems compatible with these characteristics.
We show that the most common suggestions to cope with typicality (e.g., many-valued and (or) nonmonotonic systems) fail to capture entirely this phenomenon. As for the other features, no serious attempt has been made yet, and we only propose tentative elements for a solution.
The main idea is to decouple the notion of concept from the notion of basic element (predicate, node), and to represent a concept by an open-ended family of entities of the system. Each entity conveys a possible interpretation of the concept, and interpretations are ordered, according to their "depth." An example illustrating the main features of this scheme is provided.     

The robotics body of knowledge [Education]

The article gives a wake up call on the need of an organized effort in robotics education. A brief overview of the special issue of the International Journal of Engineering Education, which offered some insight into the current trends in robotics education, is given. A range of robotics programs that can be offered at the bachelor's degree level and how these mesh with existing programs are described. Finally, the need for the robotics community to establish its body of knowledge is stressed     

The boiled frog problem [knowledge management]

As many of the most knowledgeable personnel in technically complex businesses approach retirement, there is a need to capture their knowledge. The temptation is for management to ignore the problem until it is too late. The article discusses how a company can identify employees who possess valuable undocumented knowledge, evaluate whether the knowledge is worth capturing, elicit, represent, and preserve the valuable knowledge, and share this knowledge with other personnel when needed.     

This is NOT a game [virtual reality]

Training exercises with a large degree of realism have always been the goal of the armed forces. To a large extent, the US military has succeeded in creating the training simulations needed to turn out the world's most successful fighting forces, but at a staggering cost. The paper discusses the use of simulation and virtual reality in military training.     

What is a profile? [computer standards]

Discusses the value of profiles and how they differ from standards. Profiles address the problem of computer standards not being precisely designed to meet end-user needs. A standard's scope is generally much narrower than an entire computer system. To support user needs, a particular computer system may have to comply with many individual standards. Several factors may limit the scope of each standard. Moreover, no formal standards body requires that standards completely address end-user needs. Finally, a standard's scope is often reduced because an area originally covered by the standard does not have sufficient consensus to be retained in that standard. A consensus-based standard can be produced only in those areas that have sufficient consensus. Profiles are specifications that formally capture an organization's information technology needs. They are becoming a way to map the middle ground between overall user needs and the standards related to those needs. Profiles can be used to inventory an existing computing strategy, support a computing procurement or drive the evolution of an organization's computing strategy. Actually, organizations have been developing profiles for many years. However, they've gone by such names as procurement specifications, bid documents, strategic plans or recommended practices. At a minimum, a profile identifies user requirements and the standards or specifications that meet those requirements. A profile may also include more details on an organization's computing strategy     

机器数补码全字长数位说

大量现行教材与专著中所表述的“机器数补码首位是符号位”之说,其补码加法法则不能被解释,令人困惑。对机器数补码全字长各位定义了位权,提出了“首位负权记数制”及新的机器数补码数据模型。在这个新的模型下,建立了补码与其真值的等量映射,论证了机器数补码的表值域,论证了补码真值负与非负的判定法则及机器数补码[x]与其真值[y]二者之间相互转换的求解法则;给出了机器数补码的加法法则,论证了在封闭运算条件下机器数补码加法的等效加法运算法则。揭示了机器系统内部补码信息表示的内涵与补码加法法则的真相,建立了“机器数补码全字长数位说”。“机器数补码首位符号说”中种种无可释然的困惑,在“机器数补码全字长数位说”里不复存在。     

A bit of a PM rant

Are we men (women) or mice? Get ready to say ‘no’more often. IT projects get a bad press, and some of it maybe due to poor project management, but any amount of PRINCE2and other methods doesn't seem to help as much as it ought to.     

Small is beautiful [entertainment computing]

Chip companies face the huge challenge of balancing low power consumption with the computing performance needed to transform polygons and push pixels. Applying this power to a device that can last days on a single charge lets users play Quake on a Quarter VGA (QVGA) screen at 35 frames per second. Mobile phone manufacturers also want highly integrated chips to minimize costs and circuit board real estate. Hence, they must also combine audio and imaging functions with signal processing for wireless networking.     

Perfect Code is W[1]-complete

We show that the parameterized problem Perfect Code belongs to W[1]. This result closes an old open question, because it was often conjectured that Perfect Code could be a natural problem having complexity degree intermediate between W[1] and W[2]. This result also shows W[1]-membership of the parameterized problem Weighted Exact CNF Satisfiability.     

Mapping the course, marking the trail [personal knowledge management]

Personal knowledge management tools function to help humans consider their information assets and needs before searching, so they can ask insightful questions and form search request better. Extending this approach, Mitretek Systems designed and implemented a prototypes of two post-search tools to use after the initial search. The personal information extraction (PIE) tool helps the user build models to organize and explore the information in a collection of documents. The Knowledge Discovery Trails tool (KD trails) records the routes of information-foraging excursions, so people can share of repeat successful approaches. Tools such as these would let knowledge workers improve the ways they search for and manage information, helping them transform an instinctive behavior into a calculated process.     

A ghost in a snowstorm [computer graphics]

There is a storm cloud growing on the horizon of the digital convergence between computer graphics and television/graphic arts. Computer graphics and image processing assume that pixel values are linearly related to light intensity. A typical video or paint image, however, encodes intensity nonlinearly. Most image manipulation software does not take this into account and just does arithmetic on the pixel values as though they were linearly related to light intensity. This is obviously wrong. The question is, how wrong, and for what pixel values is the problem worst and best? The author presents a review of the basic concepts     

The pressure is on [computer systems research]

That computing and communication systems are becoming increasingly interdependent is evident in almost every aspect of society. Applications of these integrated systems are also spreading. As this trend continues, it will force the computing community not only to develop revolutionary systems but also to redefine “computer system” and the roles of traditional research disciplines, such as operating systems, architectures, compilers, languages, and networking. Systems research faces an unprecedented challenge. Systems developers are facing a major discontinuity in the scale and nature of both applications and execution environments. Applications are changing from transforming data to directly interacting with humans; they will use hardware and data that span wide area, even global, networks of resources and involve interactions among users as well. Even the architecture of individual processors is uncertain. The authors look at three challenges facing systems research, describe developing solutions, and review remaining obstacles. Using this information, they formulate three clear first steps to addressing the identified challenges: (a) define a new paradigm for systems research; (b) attack problems common to all system development; (c) build a research infrastructure     

When is two too many? [standards]

One statement often repeated in the standards world is that one standard is good, but two standards are bad. I've heard this statement lately, and take exception with it. I don't disagree that one standard is usually better than two or more, but that doesn't necessarily make two or more standards bad. Good examples of multiple standards that work are modem standards. There is the old, reliable 300-bps modem standard. I don't know about you, but I don't use it. I use the V.90 56-Kbps standard. In fact, there are many modem standards. If we didn't have many, we would still be using 300 bps. There are many other examples of multiple standards. But, you may say modem standards aren't a good example because each improves on the previous one