The Eurotra linguistic specifications: An overview

In this article, we outline the contents of the linguistic specifications of the Eurotra machine translation system. We start in sections 1 and 2 from some of the requirements placed by multilingual MT on the overall design of the linguistic components. We then move on to a characterization of the Eurotra interface structure (section 3), the nature of transfer (section 4), and trends towards more interlingual representations within the project (section 5). Thereafter, we concentrate on the contents of the various levels beside the interface structure (section 6) before giving a brief survey of word structure (section 7) and outlining some areas for further research (section 8).

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Guilt-based handling of software performance antipatterns in palladio architectural models

Antipatterns are conceptually similar to patterns in that they document recurring solutions to common design problems. Software performance antipatterns document common performance problems in the design as well as their solutions. The definition of performance antipatterns concerns software properties that can include static, dynamic, and deployment aspects. To make use of such knowledge, we propose an approach that helps software architects to identify and solve performance antipatterns. Our approach provides software performance feedback to architects, since it suggests the design alternatives that allow overcoming the detected performance problems.The feedback process may be quite complex since architects may have to assess several design options before achieving the architectural model that best fits the end-user expectations. In order to optimise such process we introduce a ranking methodology that identifies, among a set of detected antipatterns, the “guilty” ones, i.e. the antipatterns that more likely contribute to the violation of specific performance requirements. The introduction of our ranking process leads the system to converge towards the desired performance improvement by discarding a consistent part of design alternatives. Four case studies in different application domains have been used to assess the validity of the approach.     

A database design for the runtime environment of a robotic workcell

Intelligent robotic workcell activities have come to require a database framework for arranging, storing and accessing information in real-time about the workcell environment in a standard way. After a brief introduction to the theory of databases (DB), we examine the general topic of robotic workcells, identify characteristics typical of robotic applications, and then present a survey of DB-related work in the robotics domain. We then construct a set of design constraints based on our analysis of robotic applications, and describe a suitable software architecture. The paper concludes with a discussion of experience gained with two generations of DB implementations.     

The pros and cons of Unix and Windows security policies

Supporters frequently tout Windows NT as being the most secure commercially available operating system. Others tend to believe this opinion after hearing of Unix's many infamous security vulnerabilities. In reality, the two operating systems have far more in common from a security point of view than people expect. This, then, makes it difficult to honestly assert that NT is more secure than Unix. By providing a brief introduction to the security architectures of Unix and Windows, we hope to convince readers that both operating systems have substantial merit from a security point of view and that neither operating system offers clearly superior security     

关于我国反病毒技术发展的若干思考

通过调查、分析和比较国内外病毒、反病毒技术的发展情况,指出民族软件产业在反病毒技术方面的不足,并从管理上、技术上、策略上提出了相应的应变措施,希望能为我国民族软件业能在世界反病毒领域占有一席之地有所帮助。     

Software reuse in product populations

Consumer products are becoming increasingly software intensive. The software complexity of individual products grows, while the diversity of products increases and the lead time must decrease. Software reuse is the answer to this, not only within a family but also between families of consumer products. We have devised an approach based upon a software component technology to enable reuse. This paper describes that approach, and it zooms in on two important aspects of component-based development. One aspect concerns the prediction of system properties from properties of components, which we illustrate using thread synchronization as example. The other aspect concerns branching of our software in our configuration management systems, where our analysis leads to the discovery that we may be constantly rewriting our own code and to the definition of the turn-over factor to quantify this. We end this paper with a brief validation of our approach.     

A treatment of unbounded dependencies in eurotra with an experimental coindexation tool

The purpose of this article is to present a treatment of unbounded dependencies which is currently being experimented with in Eurotra. The treatment is based on the coindexation tool designed by the authors as an extension to the E-Framework, Eurotra's NLP formalism. At present, the tool has been tested in a systematic way in the Danish, French, Italian, and Spanish modules of the Eurotra translation system. Testing work on other languages (especially German) is in progress. Our article is organized as follows: in section 1, we discuss the linguistic and translational motivations for the treatment presented here; in section 2, we give the syntax and semantics of the two main components of the coindexation tool, namely the recursion markers and the copy operator; section 3 shows how this machinery can be applied for the implementation of unbounded dependency constructions according to our approach.

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CAT2: An experimental eurotra alternative

In developing a theory of MT, it is desirable to have a methodology just powerful enough to achieve the intended results without introducing unnecessary complexity. A formalism designed to embody the methodology, and its implementation in some computer language, should also reflect this characteristic. This notion of appropriate complexity underlies the philosophy behind the cat2 MT system, a powerful yet simple instantiation of the Eurotra MT methodology. This report describes the cat2 formalism, and compares it to the Eurotra Engineering Framework, as well as to other formalisms for linguistic analysis. It is stressed that with a minimal set of formal devices the cat2 formalism achieves a level of adequacy equivalent to if not superior to the official Eurotra system.     

Programming by contract

Why can't software be more like hardware? has been the software engineer's lament for nearly as long as there have been large software systems. In particular, why isn't there a software components industry to rival the existing hardware components industry? Hardware components come with the following attributes: an interface that hides detail that would only confuse or at least distract me; an unambiguous interface specification written in a language I can understand (in the case of the integrated circuit, this may be a fairly complex language, but it's one I expect to learn if I'm going to work with that hardware); a guarantee-the component has been tested and/or validated against its specification. All three items-especially the last one-are notably lacking for software components. Indeed, software tends to come with an antiguarantee, otherwise known as a disclaimer. All of the above points rely on a rigorous specification of the hardware component's interface. In a nutshell, programming by contract is about providing just such specifications for software components (that is, classes), and it provides the best hope of a basis for a true software component industry. The discussion focuses on object oriented software     

大体积混凝土结构施工应力分析的有限单元法及其软件

大型结构工程软件包TCA是我国七五攻关项目,特别适用于大体积混凝土结构工程,在施工过程中可变计算域的温度、应力分析的仿真计算。本文简要地介绍了TCA软件应用有限单元法解决弹性徐变体计算的初应变法和软件的基本特点与结构,并给出了应用实例。     

Measuring the performance of aspect oriented software: A case study of Leader/Followers and Half-Sync/Half-Async architectures

The aim of this work is to measure the impact of aspect-oriented programming on software performance. Thus, we hypothesized as follow: adding aspects to a base program will affect its performance because of the overhead caused by the control flow switching, and that incremental effect on performance is more obvious as the number of join points increases. To test our hypotheses we carried out a case study of two concurrent architectures: Half-Sync/Half-Async and Leader/Followers. Aspects are extracted and encapsulated and the base program performance was compared to the aspect program. Our results show that the aspect-oriented approach does not have significant effect on the performance and that in some cases an aspect-oriented program even outperforms the non-aspect program. We also investigated the effect of cache fault rate on performance for both aspect and non-aspect programs. Based on our experiments, the results demonstrate that there is a close correlation between the cache fault rate and performance, which may be in favor of aspect code if some aspects are frequently accessed. Additionally, the introduction of a large number of join points does not have significant effect on performance.     

ON ANALOGY FOR SOFTWARE REUSE: A PERSPECTIVE FROM CYBERNETICS

Principles developed in cybernetics and systems theory can offer meaningful hindsight to research and development in computer science and may also provide some kind of guidance to the future study of computer science. In this paper we provide some comments on the role of analogy in software reuse from the perspective of cybernetics. Our purpose is to encourage a dialogue between researchers in software engineering and those in the study of cybernetics and systems. Three aspects of cybernetics are examined: the two-dimensional nature of cybernetics and systems theory, software reuse as a form of self-adaptation that originated from the abstract schema implied by analogy, and the nonrational cognitive process involved in using analogy for software reuse. We hope that cybernetics can provide meaningful insight related to analogy in software reuse; we also hope this kind of study will benefit cybernetics itself.     

一种图形化的CORBA体系结构描述方法

随着软件技术的发展，对于软件体系结构的研究越来越引起人们的重视。本文对CORBA分布式软件体系结构的描述需求和组件之间的依赖关系进行了较详细的分析，在此基础上提出了一种基于图形的软件体系结构描述方法，该方法把基于CORBA的分布式应用的软件体系结构视为一张逻辑图，在图上预定义一组操作，有助于CORBA应用的程序设计和维护。本文还在CORBA之上实现了一个原型，概括地介绍了具体的实现途径。     

向金融海啸宣战

年关将至,金融海啸以排山倒海之势而来。业界谈论最多的话题,无一例外是未来的形势多严峻?软件企业如何过冬,如何在这场海啸中存身立命?本期,我们邀请了产业链上有代表性的企业家,通过他们客观的分析与评断、为我们构建信心,积聚力量,向金融海啸宣战!     

Automating manual reward systems

The introduction of Personal Computers has enabled Industrial Engineers to automate many aspects of their responsibilities, thus becoming significantly more productive. One aspect which clearly benefits from automation is the creation, implementation, and periodic maintenance of Pay-for-Performance Reward Systems. However, selecting the correct software package is not easy. Industrial Engineers currently have a variety of fully automated software packages to choose from which can range from $2,000 – $100,000. The initial cost alone may make it difficult to Justify for a small plant. Furthermore, if you have a variety of reward systems (Gainsharing - Small Group - One for One) finding a single program to handle all of them may be impossible.

This was a problem Norton Company faced five years ago. We are a fortune 500 company with manufacturing plants located throughout the world, using a variety of reward systems. To remain cost competitive in all aspects of our business, we had to find a way to reduce the on-going maintenance costs of our incentive systems.

Investigating alternatives uncovered a low cost, flexible solution to our problem. The use of off-the-shelf spreadsheet and data base software enabled us to fully automate all aspects of our reward systems.     

层次型Java软件质量度量模型研究

软件度量研究方兴未艾,构建软件度量模型是其中一个重要的研究方向。度量模型从本质上说,是一组对软件进行评价的标准。这个标准并不是仅仅为了用来证明软件的好坏优劣,也用来反映不同软件系统或者软件模块的特点,从而为不同的需求服务。计算机科学中没有绝对的概念,它从诞生起就是紧密围绕应用服务的,计算机科学的研究一定要和现实需求相关联,因此作为一种评价标准,度量模型同样是从不同方面来综合评测软件的属性,从而在不同需求面前提供可参考的选择。     

P2P系统服务质量研究

随着P2P计算受到越来越多的关注,如何系统全面地对一个P2P系统作出评估成了一个非常重要的问题。本文从服务质量的角度来系统地考虑P2P系统评估的问题,提出了一个P2P系统服务质量度量框架,以帮助和指导P2P系统的设计和选择。     

Multimedia indexing and retrieval: ever great challenges

In this introduction, we present a brief state of the art of multimedia indexing and retrieval as well as highlight some notions explored in the special issue. We hope that the contributions of this special issue will present ingredients for further investigations on this ever challenging domain. The special issue is actually situated between old problems and new challenges, and contribute to understand the next multimedia indexing and retrieval generation. The contributions explore wide range of fields such as signal processing, data mining and information retrieval.     

Opportunistic Software Systems Development: Making Systems from What's Available

Despite all the difficulties encountered in each incarnation of software reuse, we persist along the path of trying to figure out how we're going to create systems that meet the ever-increasing demand for capability and, with it, complexity and sheer size. Opportunistic software systems development is a reality today and for the foreseeable future, as the five articles in IEEE Software 's November/December 2008 special issue on OSSD demonstrate. This special issue aims to gather together insights into the viability, or perhaps the inevitability, of OSSD and to bring forward the most effective practices known today. Another goal is to point the way to what needs to be done to make OSSD more accessible to all practitioners. The editors hope to help the software community realize the importance of this new trend and the many aspects of it that have yet to be conquered.     

Argumentation in artificial intelligence

Over the last ten years, argumentation has come to be increasingly central as a core study within Artificial Intelligence (AI). The articles forming this volume reflect a variety of important trends, developments, and applications covering a range of current topics relating to the theory and applications of argumentation. Our aims in this introduction are, firstly, to place these contributions in the context of the historical foundations of argumentation in AI and, subsequently, to discuss a number of themes that have emerged in recent years resulting in a significant broadening of the areas in which argumentation based methods are used. We begin by presenting a brief overview of the issues of interest within the classical study of argumentation: in particular, its relationship—in terms of both similarities and important differences—to traditional concepts of logical reasoning and mathematical proof. We continue by outlining how a number of foundational contributions provided the basis for the formulation of argumentation models and their promotion in AI related settings and then consider a number of new themes that have emerged in recent years, many of which provide the principal topics of the research presented in this volume.