Muse: Multi-algorithm collaborative crystal structure prediction

The algorithm and testing of the Multi-algorithm-collaborative Universal Structure-prediction Environment (Muse) are detailed. Presently, in Muse I combined the evolutionary, the simulated annealing, and the basin hopping algorithms to realize high-efficiency structure predictions of materials under certain conditions. Muse is kept open and other algorithms can be added in future. I introduced two new operators, slip and twist, to increase the diversity of structures. In order to realize the self-adaptive evolution of structures, I also introduced the competition scheme among the ten variation operators, as is proved to further increase the diversity of structures. The symmetry constraints in the first generation, the multi-algorithm collaboration, the ten variation operators, and the self-adaptive scheme are all key to enhancing the performance of Muse. To study the search ability of Muse, I performed extensive tests on different systems, including the metallic, covalent, and ionic systems. All these present tests show that Muse has very high efficiency and 100% success rate.     

Performance of Muse on switch-based multiprocessor machines

The Muse (multiple sequential Prolog engines) approach has been used to make a simple and efficient OR-parallel implementation of the full Prolog language. The performance results of the Muse system on bus-based multiprocessor machines have been presented in previous papers. This paper discusses the implementation and performance results of the Muse system on switch-based multiprocessors (the BBN Butterfly GP1000 and TC2000). The results of Muse execution show that high real speedups can be achieved for Prolog programs that exhibit coarse-grained parallelism. The scheduling overhead is equivalent to around 8–26 Prolog procedure calls per task on the TC2000. The paper also compares the Muse results with corresponding results for the Aurora OR-parallel Prolog system. For a large set of benchmarks, the results are in favor of the Muse system.     

Full prolog and scheduling or-parallelism in muse

Muse is a simple and efficient approach to Or-parallel implementation of the full Prolog language. It is based on havingmultiplesequential Prolog engines, each with its local address space, and some shared memory space. It is currently implemented on a number of bus-based and switch-based multiprocessors. The sequential SICStus Prolog system has been adapted to Or-parallel implementation with very low extra overhead in comparison with other approaches. The Muse performanhce results are very encouraging in absolute and relative terms.The Muse execution model and its performance results on two different multiprocessor machines for a parallel version of Prolog, named Commit Prolog, have been presented in previous papers. This paper discusses supporting the full Prolog language and describes mechanisms being developed for scheduling Or-parallelism in Muse. It also presents performance results of the Muse implementation on Sequent Symmetry after supporting full Prolog. The results show that the extra overhead associated with supporting the full Prolog language is negligible.     

Towards an environment interface standard for agent platforms

We introduce an interface for connecting agent platforms to environments. This interface provides generic functionality for executing actions and for perceiving changes in an agent’s environment. It also provides support for managing an environment, e.g., for starting, pausing and terminating it. Among the benefits of such an interface are (1) standard functionality is provided by the interface implementation itself, and (2) agent platforms that support the interface can connect to any environment that implements the interface. This significantly reduces effort required from agent and environment programmers as the environment code needed to implement the interface needs to be written only once. We propose that the interface presented may be used as a standard that enables agents to control entities in environments. Our starting point for designing such a generic interface is based on a careful study of the various interfaces used by different agent programming languages to connect agent programs to environments. We discuss several case studies that use our interface (an elevator simulator, the well-known agent contest, and an implementation of the interface to connect agents to bots in Unreal Tournament 2004).     

Muse—A Computer Assisted Verification System

Muse is a verification system which extends the collection of tools developed by SRI International for their Hierarchical Development Methodology (HDM). It enhances the SRI system by providing a capability for proving invariants and constraints for the state machine described by a specification written in SPECIAL (the specification language of HDM). In particular, it enables one to use the HDM system to meet the requirements for formal verification in a National Computer Security Center A1 evaluation of a secure operating system. In addition to the tools provided by SRI, Muse has a parser, a facility to handle multiple modules, a formula generator, and a theorem prover. The theorem prover has a number of interesting features designed to facilitate human direction of the proving process. In concept, it is open-ended. We introduce the notion of a theorem prover kernel as a device for ensuring the logical soundness of the prover in the face of continual improvements to its functionality.     

中缅边境典型城市扩张遥感动态监测及驱动力分析

在“一带一路”背景下,当前针对边境城市建成区发展的研究尚不充分,特别境内外口岸毗邻城市的演化交互关系更有待挖掘。以中缅边境地区典型的口岸毗邻城市——瑞丽市和木姐市作为研究区,选取2012、2015和2018年遥感影像,采用城镇建筑用地指数提取两市建成区,从建成区扩张数量、空间分布格局和内部经济规模3个方面,分析瑞丽市开发开放试验区设立后的两市建成区动态变化特征,并对两市建成区演化的交互关系和扩张驱动因素进行探讨。结果表明：在自然环境、经济产业、政策规划、交通、口岸等因素的综合作用下,两市建成区扩张明显。瑞丽市城市西部扩张最为明显,东部次之,呈现“一体两翼”式扩张格局,逐渐从建成区外延转为内部填充及基础设施完善阶段;木姐市主要向西北和正东方向扩张,建成区保持较为明显的外延特征,但其内部土地集约利用水平不高。在交互协同发展过程中,瑞丽市占主导地位,木姐市处在依附地位。两市的快速协同扩张也体现了中缅两国政治经济的紧密交流和广阔的合作空间。     

Process integration in CASE environments

Research in CASE environments has focused on two kinds of integration: tool and object. A higher level of integration, process integration, which represents development activities explicitly in a software process model to guide and coordinate development and to integrate tools and objects, is proposed. Process integration uses software process models (SPMs) a process driver, a tool set, and interfaces for both developers and managers to form the backbone of a process-driven CASE environment. The developer's interface, a working environment that lets developers enact an SPM, and the manager's interface which gives managers and analysts the tools to define, monitor, and control the SPMs that developers are working on concurrently are discussed. The Softman environment experiment, an implementation of process-driven CASE environments with existing CASE environments, is reviewed     

Virtual four-dimensional environments for human-computer interaction

The paper discusses basic approaches to implementation of a graphical user interface (GUI) as virtual two- and three-dimensional environments for human-computer interaction. A design approach to virtual four-dimensional environments based on special visual effects is proposed. Functional capabilities of the FDC package that implements an environment prototype and principles of user operation are given.     

Toward the design of transitional interfaces: an exploratory study on a semi-immersive hybrid user interface

A task that can be decomposed into subtasks with different technological demands may be a challenge, since it requires multiple interactive environments as well as transitions between them. Some of these transitions may involve changes in hardware devices and interface paradigms at the same time. Some previous works have proposed various setups for hybrid user interfaces, but none of them focused on the design of transition interactions. Our work emphasizes the importance of interaction continuity as a guideline in the design and evaluation of transitional interfaces within a hybrid user interface (HUI). Finally, an exploratory study demonstrates how this design aspect is perceived by users during transitions in an HUI composed by three interactive environments.     

Software environment architectures and user interface facilities

The authors discuss the demands and constraints on a user interface management system for a software environment, and the relation between the architecture of the environment and the user interface management system. A model for designing user interface management systems for large extensible environments is presented. This model synthesizes several recent advances in user interfaces and specializes them to the domain of software environments. The model can be applied to a wide variety of environment contexts. A prototype implementation is described     

An interface to a reliable packet delivery service for parallelsystems

Modern distributed memory parallel computers provide hardware support for the efficient and reliable delivery of interprocessor messages. This facility needs to be accessed by lightweight protocols that do not waste the performance of the underlying hardware; the heavyweight layering techniques traditionally used in distributed systems are wholly inappropriate. A low-level communication interface is therefore presented which exploits modern architectures effectively, while maintaining a good match to existing parallel programming environments. The interface defines mechanisms to access an asynchronous reliable packet delivery service. It permits messaging protocols to be efficiently synthesized by considering the activity at their end-points alone. This arrangement effectively decouples the implementation of protocols from low-level architectural features, and hence aids the portability of parallel programming environments. Furthermore, the interface allows the communication network to be shared by multiple programming paradigms, giving additional flexibility over existing systems     

Computational modeling of human performance in multiple monitor environments with ACT-R cognitive architecture

Much research on modeling human performance associated with visual perception is formulated by schematic models based on neural mechanisms or cognitive architectures. But, these two modeling paradigms are limited in the domains of multiple monitor environments. Although the schematic model based on neural mechanisms can represent human visual systems in multiple monitor environments by providing a detailed account of eye and head movements, these models cannot easily be applied in complex cognitive interactions. On the other hand, the cognitive architectures can model the interaction of multiple aspects of cognition, but these architectures have not focused on modeling the visual orienting behavior of eye and head movements. Thus, in this study, a specific cognitive architecture, which is ACT-R, is extended by an existing schematic model of human visual systems based on neural mechanisms in order to model human performance in multiple monitor environments more accurately. And, this study proposes a method of modeling human performance using the extended ACT-R. The proposed method is validated by an experiment, confirming that the proposed method is able to predict human performance more accurately in multiple monitor environments.Relevance to industryPredicting human performance with a computational model can be used as an alternative method to implementing iterative user testing for developing a system interface. The computational model in this study can predict human performance in multiple monitor environments, so that the model can be applied early on in the design phase, to evaluate the system interface in multiple monitor environments.     

人机界面自适应机制的设计和实现

当前，自适应界面已成为人机界面研究的一个方向。首先介绍了有关自适应界面的一些基本概念，并在此基础上提出了一个人机界面的自适应机制。对该机制的系统结构、实现技术进行了广泛的讨论，该机制已被应用于集成化ＣＡＤ／ＣＡＰＰ／ＣＡＭ系统－ＧＳ－ＩＣＣＣ的研制工作中。同时介绍了该机制的一些实现细节。ＧＳ－ＩＣＣＣ的自适应机制已在Ｘ－Ｗｉｎｄｏｗｓ／Ｍｏｔｉｆ环境下实现，并被证明其在提高人机交互有效性上具有良发     

The ARF Workstation: A new application of human-computer interface principles

The ARF Workstation is an interactive color workstation used by meteorologists to enter aviation weather forecasts for large geographic areas. Over the past six years, this Workstation has been iteratively designed, tested, and modified to develop a human-computer interface, which offers a flexible environment for entering precise weather forecasts in a timely manner. The result is an engineering model of workstations that will be placed in operational meteorological environments in the future. This paper presents this new Workstation's interface features and some of the human-computer interface principles that were effectively used in implementing these features.     

VME-G64 interface for industrial control crates

The VME backplane bus is suitable for use in instrumentation and control crates in industrial environments. The paper describes the implementation of an interface that allows the G64 bus to be used as an I/O section in VME-based crates. The design is implemented in a double Eurocard format using programmable logic devices (PLDs). The interface works as an I/O bus master or DMA source, and is used with an MVME101 master CPU board in a laboratory data acquisition system.     

Magic Lenses for augmented virtual environments

The authors developed a Magic Lens framework for Scape, an augmented virtual environment (AVE). They generalize the functional characteristics of Magic Lenses in terms of 3D visualization in AVEs and present two tangible Magic Lens-enabled devices with complementary interface capabilities. The authors also demonstrate their Magic Lens devices through testbed applications relevant to urban planning and medical training. This article explores an interface technique that manages viewing complexity and offers a set of versatile visualization capabilities in 3D augmented virtual environments (AVE).     

Windows3.xx下三维界面的实现

本文介绍两种在Ｗｉｎｄｏｗｓ３．ｘｘ系统下实现三维界面的方法，分别利用已有的动态连接库和ＶＢＸ控件，并且特别针对前一种方法提供了对应于不同开发环境的实现源代码以供参考     

Development of a virtual aquarium system interacting with a smart device

New applications of smart devices interacting with other computing devices are recently providing interesting and feasible solutions in ubiquitous computing environments. In this study, we propose an interactive virtual aquarium system that interacts with a smart device as a user interface. We developed a virtual aquarium graphic system and a remote interaction application of a smart device for building an interactive virtual aquarium system. We performed an experiment that demonstrates the feasibility and the effectiveness of the proposed system as an example of a new type of interactive application of a smart display, where a smart device serves as a remote user interface.     

Realization of reconfigurable virtual environments for virtual testing

1 Introduction The scalability of virtual environments (VEs) that allow users to change and modify their contents and context depending on application requirements has been a de facto feature of virtual reality technology. Engineering uses such as virtual testing and exper- imenting applications demand VEs to be highly or fully reconfigurable. In reality, however, satisfactory reconfiguration of a virtual environment is yet to be achieved, due to the high accuracy of spatial data in- put and…     

WIN9X下可编程的虚拟实验环境研究

本文在分析WIN9X环境下构建虚拟可编程环境的功能需求以及WIN9X的体系结构和虚拟环境的基础上,提出了一个虚拟可编程模型,并详细分析了模型中使用的VxD技术及工作 原理。应用该模型实现了微机原理、接口技术等课程的可编程虚拟实验环境。实验表明,该虚拟实验环境能够满足教学的要求。