PEP: An interactive programming system with an Algol-like programming language

PEP (Program Editor and Processor) is an interactive programming system based on an Algol-like language. It is intended to replace BASIC as a system for interactive program development on small computers (LSI-11). The language processed by the system allows declaration of variables, constants and procedures; it has structured statements for conditional and repetitive execution of program parts. We describe design and implementation of the system and give our impressions after 1 year of experience with the system.     

Handin — a system for helping with the teaching of programming

A system has been implemented that enables students on a programming course to hand in programs for assessment without the need for printed listings to be generated. The system test runs all submitted programs using standard sets of data, and then facilitates the marking of these programs by the staff teaching the course. The implementation of this system is described, and the experience gained from using it is discussed.     

NSEDIT: A syntax-directed editor and testing tool based on Nassi—Shneiderman charts

This paper describes a programming environment for Pascal, called NSEDIT, which runs under VAX/VMS

1 VAX/VMS is a trademark of the Digital Equipment Corporation.

. NSEDIT is based upon the notion of Nassi-Shneiderman charts (abbreviated to N-S charts in this paper) and is designed for ease of use by novice programmers in a teaching situation. A key component of the system is the editor, which enables structural features of Pascal to be manipulated in terms of their N-S chart box representations. Simultaneous editing of more than one program or module is permitted. Another key feature of the system is a semiautomatic interface to the VAX/VMS Pascal compiler, with subsequent display of execution counts as part of the N-S charts. In this way users can obtain immediate feedback on the coverage of program elements by test runs, while still inside an editing session.     

A programming language engineered for beginners

As the complexity and size of programs increase, the programmer is challenged with the task of organizing his program in a manner which will enhance intellectual manageability. Thus, the structure and style are critical in regards to writing programs and verifying their correctness. In recent years, considerable emphasis has been placed on the correctness of programs and techniques for engineering them to be correct. However, more emphasis should be placed on designing languages which facilitate constructing correct programs. In an effort to partially address this problem, a language is described which permits users the convenient development of well-structured programs that are easy to read and understand, easy to correct (debug) and modify, and easy to verify the correctness of the program. The language presented permits the use of decision tables for expressing complex logic.     

HADES—A command environment that supports structure

HADES is a command program designed to aid programmers and authors involved in writing systems with an inherently high degree of structuring. It presents the system being developed in a hierarchical fashion, encouraging a top down approach to its design, and alleviates many of the problems experienced with traditional filing systems. Unlike other programming environment systems, the utility programs and tools do not have to be ‘integrated’ into the system, which means that new and existing tools can be quickly and easily added. This results in a rich set of operations implemented at very low cost. The paper outlines some of the problems that arise with traditional filing systems from the point of view of software development, and then presents the approach adopted by HADES. This is followed by a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the result and some reflections on the lessons that have been learnt.     

Joyce—A programming language for distributed systems

This paper describes a secure programming language called Joyce based on CSP and Pascal. Joyce permits unbounded (recursive) activation of communicating agents. The agents exchange messages through synchronous channels. A channel can transfer messages of different types between two or more agents. A compiler can check message types and ensure that agents use disjoint sets of variables only. The use of Joyce is illustrated by a variety of examples.     

The design of an interactive program development system for Pascal

A program language can be defined as the language in which computer programs are written, and a programming language as the language used by the programmer to create programs. This paper presents the design of an interactive program development system which uses Pascal as both program and programming language. Principal properties of the system are a complete immediate syntax check, a program-structure oriented editor, incremental compiling techniques, and interactive interpretation and debugging of programs. The syntax check is split into three phases, and the user can change the degree of check wanted. After a change of the program only part of it is recompiled, and only necessary phases of the compiling process are performed.     

A graphical editor and process visualization system for man-machine interfaces of dynamic systems

The process visualization system of a manmachine interface is presented. It allows human operator(s) to interact with a dynamic technical system, here a thermal power plant. Also, a graphical editor for designing dynamic pictures of the process visualization system is explained. Both new systems have a common architecture and are based on the computer graphics standard PHIGS-2D with extensions for handling non-graphical and graphical information. The hierarchical information structures are manipulated with lists and pointers in a dynamic visual database. The two menu-driven interfaces for designers and for operators are described with their multi-window display layouts. The software of both systems is highly portable to different hardware and to other application domains.     

基于优化模型、 规则和人机协调的转库决策支持系统

介绍一个在联机事务处理（OLTP）环境下构建的基于优化模型、规则和人机协调的决策支持系统。通过对某钢铁企业发货部门内部物流管理业务的分析，建立了转库决策整数规划模型，设计了专家规则与整数规划求解相结合的问题求解方法，并在此基础上构建了转库决策支持系统。针对此类 系统的构建，提出了所应考虑的问题并给出解决办法。这是一个运用运筹学方法解决实际问题的成功例子。     

NEGO — Group decision support system

There are two major frameworks for decision making: maximizing and satisficing. A combination of both may be used to describe group decision making (GDM). In the satisficing approach, decision makers (DMs) formulate aspiriation levels or demands which take the form of constraints. Choosing from among different decisions, DMs take into account their preferences or wants, which take the form of objective functions.GDM is divided into two stages: first, each DM makes a decision, and second, DMs negotiate so as to achieve a compromise decision. Negotiating is an iterative process. Negotiations are completed when all demands have been met.The group decision support system “NEGO” assists DMs in finding a compromise. It has been used for solving a GDM problem at the corporate level and is currently utilized in management courses.     

A graphical interface for production and transportation system modeling: PTS

PTS is a graphical interface for production and transportation system modeling. It provides a means of creating an economic model of production and transportation activities in a system of plants and markets. The model created by PTS is translated into the GAMS language and is solved using that system. The results are then returned to PTS and are displayed graphically. PTS runs under Windows on IBM PCs and compatibles. PTS is used to (1) provide a graphical interface for knowledge-based model development systems, (2) provide a test-bed for studies of parallel model representations and (3) analyze methods of production and transportation model development which are simpler than the knowledge-based methods. The system is currently implemented for linear programming production and transportation problems. Also, the current implementation provides graphical and GAMS representations of the model.     

Connecting expert system features to a multiple criteria programming based decision support system

We concentrate on the issue of utilizing artificial intelligence based computer systems as an aid to formulating and formalizing corporate planning problems. Our proposal involves cooperation between the analyst and expert system in order to find a suitable structure for the problem to be solved. The Al system is designed using logic programming. The study is an outgrowth of the experience gained in developing a strategic planning system with menu-driven simulation (heuristic, Monte Carlo), multiple criteria optimization and database query facilities for the concern management of Kansallis-Osake-Pankki (Finland).     

A distributed system for learning programming on-line

Several Web-based on-line judges or on-line programming trainers have been developed in order to allow students to train their programming skills. However, their pedagogical functionalities in the learning of programming have not been clearly defined. EduJudge is a project which aims to integrate the “UVA On-line Judge”, an existing on-line programming trainer with an important number of problems and users, into an effective educational environment consisting of the e-learning platform Moodle and the competitive learning tool QUESTOURnament. The result is the EduJudge system which allows teachers to apply different pedagogical approaches using a proven e-learning platform, makes problems easy to search through an effective search engine, and provides an automated evaluation of the solutions submitted to these problems. The final objective is to provide new learning strategies to motivate students and present programming as an easy and attractive challenge. EduJudge has been tried and tested in three algorithms and programming courses in three different Engineering degrees. The students’ motivation and satisfaction levels were analysed alongside the effects of the EduJudge system on students’ academic outcomes. Results indicate that both students and teachers found that among other multiple benefits the EduJudge system facilitates the learning process. Furthermore, the experiment also showed an improvement in students’ academic outcomes. It must be noted that the students’ level of satisfaction did not depend on their computer skills or their gender.     

A structure for efficient update,incremental redisplay and undo in graphical editors

The design of a graphical editor requires a solution to a number of problems, including how to (1) support incremental redisplay, (2) control the granularity of display updates, (3) provide efficient access and modification to the underlying data structure, (4) handle multiple views of the same data and (5) support Undo operations. It is most important that these problems be solved without sacrificing program modularity. A new data structure, called an ItemList, provides a solution to these problems. ItemLists maintain both multiple views and multiple versions of data to simplify Undo operations and to support incremental display updates. The implementation of ItemLists is described and the use of ItemLists to create graphical editors is presented.     

Exception handling—A static approach

This paper presents a static approach to exception handling. The static approach is proposed as a consequence of an examination of existing language constructs for exception handling in which several trouble spots have been revealed. The static approach consists basically of one concept, namely the sequel concept. Although the sequel concept is sufficient to specify exception handling within a program, one additional concept is introduced, namely the derived definition concept that is introduced as a generalization of the derived type and generic concepts from Ada. The main advantages of the static approach are first that it is truly static as opposed to the existing language constructs in which dynamic association is used in some way or another; and, secondly, the language constructs for exception handling are simple, easy to implement and based on familiar concepts.     

面向装备全寿命保障的约束规划框架

提出了一个约束规划框架,用于支持装备全寿命保障过程中各类约束满足问题的求解。框架包括问题规约,业务领域、寿命周期和求解策略4个相互正交的剖面,分别针对问题的目标函数和约束条件,业务领域中的保障内容,寿命周期各阶段的任务划分,以及问题求解的策略和算法进行组织。通过对问题规约、业务领域、寿命周期剖面的正交组合,用户能够方便地对问题规约进行定义、复合和精化。框架中还提供了一组启发式规则,用于帮助用户在问题求解剖面中快速确定一个有效的算法,并将之应用于具体的问题规约。     

A decision support system for cyclic master surgery scheduling with multiple objectives

This paper presents a decision support system for cyclic master surgery scheduling and describes the results of an extensive case study applied in a medium-sized Belgian hospital. Three objectives are taken into account when building the master surgery schedule. First of all, the resulting bed occupancy at the hospitalization units should be leveled as much as possible. Second, a particular operating room is best allocated exclusively to one group of surgeons having the same speciality; i.e., operating rooms should be shared as little as possible between different surgeon groups. Third, the master surgery schedule is preferred to be as simple and repetitive as possible, with few changes from week to week. The system relies on mixed integer programming techniques involving the solution of multi-objective linear and quadratic optimization problems, and on a simulated annealing metaheuristic.     

Talk—an interactive system for a small computer

TALK is an interactive file creation and editing system implemented on a very small computer. It provides facilities for FORTRAN syntax checking and an interactive ‘desk-calculator’. Major computing tasks are sent over a high speed link to CDC 6600/6400 computers A number of teleprinters can be controlled by TALK in the usual way, but also the card reader/line printer pair may be used as a terminal. This is useful for creating or printing large files When a user has logged in he can work in one of several modes. These include INPUT, EDIT and CALCULATE modes. It is possible to nest modes, for example, by entering CALCULATE mode while in INPUT mode without losing one's place in the input file An unusual feature of TALK is the ‘inclusion’ facility. This enables a user to specify previously filed text to be included within another file, either as the file is being created or dynamically whenever the file is used. It also gives users the ability to build up macros of commonly used commands. Many system commands are in fact macros with only simple primitives provided as executable code.