Python to learn programming

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bogdanchikov, A.; Zhaparov, M.; Suliyev, R.

2013-04-01

Today we have a lot of programming languages that can realize our needs, but the most important question is how to teach programming to beginner students. In this paper we suggest using Python for this purpose, because it is a programming language that has neatly organized syntax and powerful tools to solve any task. Moreover it is very close to simple math thinking. Python is chosen as a primary programming language for freshmen in most of leading universities. Writing code in python is easy. In this paper we give some examples of program codes written in Java, C++ and Python language, and we make a comparison between them. Firstly, this paper proposes advantages of Python language in relation to C++ and JAVA. Then it shows the results of a comparison of short program codes written in three different languages, followed by a discussion on how students understand programming. Finally experimental results of students' success in programming courses are shown.

Teaching Programming to Novices: A Review of Approaches and Tools.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brusilovsky, P.; And Others

Three different approaches to teaching introductory programming are reviewed: the incremental approach, the sub-language approach, and the mini-language approach. The paper analyzes all three approaches, providing a brief history of each and describing an example of a programming environment supporting this approach. In the incremental approach,…

Promoting consistent use of the communication function classification system (CFCS).

PubMed

Cunningham, Barbara Jane; Rosenbaum, Peter; Hidecker, Mary Jo Cooley

2016-01-01

We developed a Knowledge Translation (KT) intervention to standardize the way speech-language pathologists working in Ontario Canada's Preschool Speech and Language Program (PSLP) used the Communication Function Classification System (CFCS). This tool was being used as part of a provincial program evaluation and standardizing its use was critical for establishing reliability and validity within the provincial dataset. Two theoretical foundations - Diffusion of Innovations and the Communication Persuasion Matrix - were used to develop and disseminate the intervention to standardize use of the CFCS among a cohort speech-language pathologists. A descriptive pre-test/post-test study was used to evaluate the intervention. Fifty-two participants completed an electronic pre-test survey, reviewed intervention materials online, and then immediately completed an electronic post-test survey. The intervention improved clinicians' understanding of how the CFCS should be used, their intentions to use the tool in the standardized way, and their abilities to make correct classifications using the tool. Findings from this work will be shared with representatives of the Ontario PSLP. The intervention may be disseminated to all speech-language pathologists working in the program. This study can be used as a model for developing and disseminating KT interventions for clinicians in paediatric rehabilitation. The Communication Function Classification System (CFCS) is a new tool that allows speech-language pathologists to classify children's skills into five meaningful levels of function. There is uncertainty and inconsistent practice in the field about the methods for using this tool. This study used combined two theoretical frameworks to develop an intervention to standardize use of the CFCS among a cohort of speech-language pathologists. The intervention effectively increased clinicians' understanding of the methods for using the CFCS, ability to make correct classifications, and intention to use the tool in the standardized way in the future.

Automatic programming of simulation models

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schroer, Bernard J.; Tseng, Fan T.; Zhang, Shou X.; Dwan, Wen S.

1988-01-01

The objective of automatic programming is to improve the overall environment for describing the program. This improved environment is realized by a reduction in the amount of detail that the programmer needs to know and is exposed to. Furthermore, this improved environment is achieved by a specification language that is more natural to the user's problem domain and to the user's way of thinking and looking at the problem. The goal of this research is to apply the concepts of automatic programming (AP) to modeling discrete event simulation system. Specific emphasis is on the design and development of simulation tools to assist the modeler define or construct a model of the system and to then automatically write the corresponding simulation code in the target simulation language, GPSS/PC. A related goal is to evaluate the feasibility of various languages for constructing automatic programming simulation tools.

Quicksilver: Middleware for Scalable Self-Regenerative Systems

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-04-01

Applications can be coded in any of about 25 programming languages ranging from the obvious ones to some very obscure languages , such as OCaml ...technology. Like Tempest, Quicksilver can support applications written in any of a wide range of programming languages supported by .NET. However, whereas...so that developers can work in standard languages and with standard tools and still exploit those solutions. Vendors need to see some success

Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL) compendium of tools, revision 1

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1982-01-01

A set of programs used to aid software product development is listed. Known as software tools, such programs include requirements analyzers, design languages, precompilers, code auditors, code analyzers, and software librarians. Abstracts, resource requirements, documentation, processing summaries, and availability are indicated for most tools.

Dynamic visualization techniques for high consequence software

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Pollock, G.M.

1998-02-01

This report documents a prototype tool developed to investigate the use of visualization and virtual reality technologies for improving software surety confidence. The tool is utilized within the execution phase of the software life cycle. It provides a capability to monitor an executing program against prespecified requirements constraints provided in a program written in the requirements specification language SAGE. The resulting Software Attribute Visual Analysis Tool (SAVAnT) also provides a technique to assess the completeness of a software specification. The prototype tool is described along with the requirements constraint language after a brief literature review is presented. Examples of howmore » the tool can be used are also presented. In conclusion, the most significant advantage of this tool is to provide a first step in evaluating specification completeness, and to provide a more productive method for program comprehension and debugging. The expected payoff is increased software surety confidence, increased program comprehension, and reduced development and debugging time.« less

Fault-Tree Compiler

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Butler, Ricky W.; Boerschlein, David P.

1993-01-01

Fault-Tree Compiler (FTC) program, is software tool used to calculate probability of top event in fault tree. Gates of five different types allowed in fault tree: AND, OR, EXCLUSIVE OR, INVERT, and M OF N. High-level input language easy to understand and use. In addition, program supports hierarchical fault-tree definition feature, which simplifies tree-description process and reduces execution time. Set of programs created forming basis for reliability-analysis workstation: SURE, ASSIST, PAWS/STEM, and FTC fault-tree tool (LAR-14586). Written in PASCAL, ANSI-compliant C language, and FORTRAN 77. Other versions available upon request.

Designing a Software Tool for Fuzzy Logic Programming

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abietar, José M.; Morcillo, Pedro J.; Moreno, Ginés

2007-12-01

Fuzzy Logic Programming is an interesting and still growing research area that agglutinates the efforts for introducing fuzzy logic into logic programming (LP), in order to incorporate more expressive resources on such languages for dealing with uncertainty and approximated reasoning. The multi-adjoint logic programming approach is a recent and extremely flexible fuzzy logic paradigm for which, unfortunately, we have not found practical tools implemented so far. In this work, we describe a prototype system which is able to directly translate fuzzy logic programs into Prolog code in order to safely execute these residual programs inside any standard Prolog interpreter in a completely transparent way for the final user. We think that the development of such fuzzy languages and programing tools might play an important role in the design of advanced software applications for computational physics, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, industrial control and so on.

A Beginner's Sequence of Programming Activities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Slesnick, Twila

1984-01-01

Presents various programing activities using the BASIC and LOGO programing languages. Activities are included in separate sections with a title indicating the nature of the activities and the "tools" (commands) needed. For example, "Old-fashioned drawing" requires several tools (PRINT, LIST, RUN, GOTO) to make drawings using…

Programming languages for synthetic biology.

PubMed

Umesh, P; Naveen, F; Rao, Chanchala Uma Maheswara; Nair, Achuthsankar S

2010-12-01

In the backdrop of accelerated efforts for creating synthetic organisms, the nature and scope of an ideal programming language for scripting synthetic organism in-silico has been receiving increasing attention. A few programming languages for synthetic biology capable of defining, constructing, networking, editing and delivering genome scale models of cellular processes have been recently attempted. All these represent important points in a spectrum of possibilities. This paper introduces Kera, a state of the art programming language for synthetic biology which is arguably ahead of similar languages or tools such as GEC, Antimony and GenoCAD. Kera is a full-fledged object oriented programming language which is tempered by biopart rule library named Samhita which captures the knowledge regarding the interaction of genome components and catalytic molecules. Prominent feature of the language are demonstrated through a toy example and the road map for the future development of Kera is also presented.

The Use of E-Mail as a Tool To Enhance Second Language Education Programs: An Example from a Core French Classroom.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lawrence, Geoff

2002-01-01

Outlines reasons why electronic mail, and specifically e-mail exchanges, are valuable tools for promoting authentic target language interaction in the second language (L2) classroom. Research examining the use of e-mail exchanges on the L2 learning process is outlined, followed by one specific example of an e-mail exchange in a secondary core…

Tools of the Courseware Trade: A Comparison of ToolBook 1.0 and HyperCard 2.0.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brader, Lorinda L.

1990-01-01

Compares two authoring tools that were developed to enable users without programing experience to create and modify software. HyperCard, designed for Macintosh microcomputers, and ToolBook, for microcomputers that run on MS-DOS, are compared in the areas of programing languages, graphics and printing capabilities, user interface, system…

Continued advancement of the programming language HAL to an operational status

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1971-01-01

The continued advancement of the programming language HAL to operational status is reported. It is demonstrated that the compiler itself can be written in HAL. A HAL-in-HAL experiment proves conclusively that HAL can be used successfully as a compiler implementation tool.

Analysis and specification tools in relation to the APSE

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hendricks, John W.

1986-01-01

Ada and the Ada Programming Support Environment (APSE) specifically address the phases of the system/software life cycle which follow after the user's problem was translated into system and software development specifications. The waterfall model of the life cycle identifies the analysis and requirements definition phases as preceeding program design and coding. Since Ada is a programming language and the APSE is a programming support environment, they are primarily targeted to support program (code) development, tecting, and maintenance. The use of Ada based or Ada related specification languages (SLs) and program design languages (PDLs) can extend the use of Ada back into the software design phases of the life cycle. Recall that the standardization of the APSE as a programming support environment is only now happening after many years of evolutionary experience with diverse sets of programming support tools. Restricting consideration to one, or even a few chosen specification and design tools, could be a real mistake for an organization or a major project such as the Space Station, which will need to deal with an increasingly complex level of system problems. To require that everything be Ada-like, be implemented in Ada, run directly under the APSE, and fit into a rigid waterfall model of the life cycle would turn a promising support environment into a straight jacket for progress.

NASA software specification and evaluation system design, part 1

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1976-01-01

The research to develop methods for reducing the effort expended in software and verification is reported. The development of a formal software requirements methodology, a formal specifications language, a programming language, a language preprocessor, and code analysis tools are discussed.

The Impact of IEEE-1076 on VHDL (Hardware Description Language)

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-12-01

Portability simply refers to how machine-independent the language is defined. The Efficiency criterion looks at how fast a program compiles and how ...if a programming language is good. The evaluation was done to determine if IEEE Standard 1076-1987 was indeed a better version of VHDL than its...must be UNIX-based and be able to * use the tools that are common to that operating system such as lex [Lesk78I, yacc [John78] and the programming

Software Reviews: Programs Worth a Second Look.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Classroom Computer Learning, 1989

1989-01-01

Reviewed are three computer software programs: (1) "World GeoGraph"--geography, discovery tool, grades 6-12, Apple IIGS; (2) "Grammatik III"--language arts, grade 7-adult, IBM, PS/2, Tandy 1000; (3) "Words & Concepts I, II, III"--language and concept training for special education, age 3-9, Apple II with speech…

Incorporating Video-Mediated Reflective Tasks in MATESOL Programs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Payant, Caroline

2014-01-01

Unlike the observed trends in general teacher education, the use of videos as a reflective tool with preservice English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers remains underexplored in MATESOL (Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) programs. The present qualitative study examined how 5 nonnative- speaking preservice…

DAVE-ML Utility Programs

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jackson, Bruce

2006-01-01

DAVEtools is a set of Java archives that embodies tools for manipulating flight-dynamics models that have been encoded in dynamic aerospace vehicle exchange markup language (DAVE-ML). [DAVE-ML is an application program, written in Extensible Markup Language (XML), for encoding complete computational models of the dynamics of aircraft and spacecraft.

Teaching Conversations with the XDS Sigma 7. Systems Description.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bork, Alfred M.; Mosmann, Charles

Some computers permit conventional programing languages to be extended by the use of macro-instructions, a sophisticated programing tool which is especially useful in writing instructional dialogs. Macro-instructions (or "macro's") are complex commands defined in terms of the machine language or other macro-instructions. Like terms in…

Processing sequence annotation data using the Lua programming language.

PubMed

Ueno, Yutaka; Arita, Masanori; Kumagai, Toshitaka; Asai, Kiyoshi

2003-01-01

The data processing language in a graphical software tool that manages sequence annotation data from genome databases should provide flexible functions for the tasks in molecular biology research. Among currently available languages we adopted the Lua programming language. It fulfills our requirements to perform computational tasks for sequence map layouts, i.e. the handling of data containers, symbolic reference to data, and a simple programming syntax. Upon importing a foreign file, the original data are first decomposed in the Lua language while maintaining the original data schema. The converted data are parsed by the Lua interpreter and the contents are stored in our data warehouse. Then, portions of annotations are selected and arranged into our catalog format to be depicted on the sequence map. Our sequence visualization program was successfully implemented, embedding the Lua language for processing of annotation data and layout script. The program is available at http://staff.aist.go.jp/yutaka.ueno/guppy/.

Toward a Renewed Focus. Literacy in Early Language Programs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Met, Mimi

2013-01-01

This article promotes literacy as a a powerful tool for learning new language. Although learners frequently think of comprehensible input as language that is heard, comprehensible input from print can also be accessed. Research has shown that reading has a powerful impact on language learning: much of the vocabulary that educated adults know has…

APT - NASA ENHANCED VERSION OF AUTOMATICALLY PROGRAMMED TOOL SOFTWARE - STAND-ALONE VERSION

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Premo, D. A.

1994-01-01

The APT code is one of the most widely used software tools for complex numerically controlled (N/C) machining. APT is an acronym for Automatically Programmed Tools and is used to denote both a language and the computer software that processes that language. Development of the APT language and software system was begun over twenty years ago as a U. S. government sponsored industry and university research effort. APT is a "problem oriented" language that was developed for the explicit purpose of aiding the N/C machine tools. Machine-tool instructions and geometry definitions are written in the APT language to constitute a "part program." The APT part program is processed by the APT software to produce a cutter location (CL) file. This CL file may then be processed by user supplied post processors to convert the CL data into a form suitable for a particular N/C machine tool. This June, 1989 offering of the APT system represents an adaptation, with enhancements, of the public domain version of APT IV/SSX8 to the DEC VAX-11/780 for use by the Engineering Services Division of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Enhancements include the super pocket feature which allows concave and convex polygon shapes of up to 40 points including shapes that overlap, that leave islands of material within the pocket, and that have one or more arcs as part of the pocket boundary. Recent modifications to APT include a rework of the POCKET subroutine and correction of an error that prevented the use within a macro of a macro variable cutter move statement combined with macro variable double check surfaces. Former modifications included the expansion of array and buffer sizes to accommodate larger part programs, and the insertion of a few user friendly error messages. The APT system software on the DEC VAX-11/780 is organized into two separate programs: the load complex and the APT processor. The load complex handles the table initiation phase and is usually only run when changes to the APT processor capabilities are made. This phase initializes character recognition and syntax tables for the APT processor by creating FORTRAN block data programs. The APT processor consists of four components: the translator, the execution complex, the subroutine library, and the CL editor. The translator examines each APT statement in the part program for recognizable structure and generates a new statement, or series of statements, in an intermediate language. The execution complex processes all of the definition, motion, and related statements to generate cutter location coordinates. The subroutine library contains routines defining the algorithms required to process the sequenced list of intermediate language commands generated by the translator. The CL editor re-processes the cutter location coordinates according to user supplied commands to generate a final CL file. A sample post processor is also included which translates a CL file into a form for use with a Wales Strippit Fabramatic Model 30/30 sheet metal punch. The user should be able to readily develop post processors for other N/C machine tools. The APT language is a statement oriented, sequence dependent language. With the exception of such programming techniques as looping and macros, statements in an APT program are executed in a strict first-to-last sequence. In order to provide programming capability for the broadest possible range of parts and of machine tools, APT input (and output) is generalized, as represented by 3-dimensional geometry and tools, and arbitrarily uniform, as represented by the moving tool concept and output data in absolute coordinates. A command procedure allows the user to select the desired part program, ask for a graphics file of cutter motions in IGES format, and submit the procedure as a batch job, if desired. The APT system software is written in FORTRAN 77 for batch and interactive execution and has been implemented on a DEC VAX series computer under VMS 4.4. The enhancements for this version of APT were last updated in June, 1989. The NASA adaptation, with enhancements, of the public domain version of the APT IV/SSX8 software to the DEC VAX-11/780 is available by license for a period of ten (10) years to approved licensees. The licensed program product delivered includes the APT IV/SSX8 system source code, object code, executable images, and command procedures and one set of supporting documentation. Additional copies of the supporting documentation may be purchased at any time at the price indicated below.

Language in Society; Semantics. Occasional Papers No. 6. University of Essex Language Centre.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Essex Univ., Colchester (England). Dept. of Language and Linguistics.

This volume consists of three articles. "'Language and Society' in the B.A. Scheme," by L. M. O'Toole, is a revised version of some proposals for incorporating a "Language and Society" course in the second year of the B.A. program at the Language Centre. Ten propositions are offered as a basis for discussion. "Some Soviet…

Hybrid Applications Of Artificial Intelligence

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Borchardt, Gary C.

1988-01-01

STAR, Simple Tool for Automated Reasoning, is interactive, interpreted programming language for development and operation of artificial-intelligence application systems. Couples symbolic processing with compiled-language functions and data structures. Written in C language and currently available in UNIX version (NPO-16832), and VMS version (NPO-16965).

A CLOSE LOOK AT THE IMPORTANCE AND PLACE OF TESTING IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE PROGRAM.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

BARRUTIA, RICHARD

TESTING IS ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE PROGRAMS BECAUSE THE NATURE OF AUDIOLINGUAL TEACHING REQUIRES GREAT AMOUNTS OF FEEDBACK, REINFORCEMENT, AND VERIFICATION. TESTS CAN MEASURE APTITUDE AND ACHIEVEMENT, CAN DIAGNOSE, AND, MOST IMPORTANT, CAN BE AN EFFECTIVE TEACHING TOOL. MANY TEACHING TECHNIQUES ARE EXCELLENT FOR TESTING AND SOME…

Programming Languages or Generic Software Tools, for Beginners' Courses in Computer Literacy?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Neuwirth, Erich

1987-01-01

Discussion of methods that can be used to teach beginner courses in computer literacy focuses on students aged 10-12. The value of using a programing language versus using a generic software package is highlighted; Logo and Prolog are reviewed; and the use of databases is discussed. (LRW)

Discourse in Adult Education: The Language Education of Adult Immigrants in Sweden.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hill, Hannah

1990-01-01

A shortcoming of adult education theories is lack of attention to social, historical, and institutional contexts. A case study of language education programs for adult immigrants in Sweden illustrates how assumptions about participant-centered, needs-based education justified and legitimated the use of these programs as a tool for employment…

Using the FORTH Language to Develop an ICU Data Acquisition System

PubMed Central

Goldberg, Arthur; SooHoo, Spencer L.; Koerner, Spencer K.; Chang, Robert S. Y.

1980-01-01

This paper describes a powerful programming tool that should be considered as an alternative to the more conventional programming languages now in use for developing medical computer systems. Forth provides instantaneous response to user commands, rapid program execution and tremendous programming versatility. An operating system and a language in one carefully designed unit, Forth is well suited for developing data acquisition systems and for interfacing computers to other instruments. We present some of the general features of Forth and describe its use in implementing a data collection system for a Respiratory Intensive Care Unit (RICU).

Developing an Intelligent Diagnosis and Assessment E-Learning Tool for Introductory Programming

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huang, Chenn-Jung; Chen, Chun-Hua; Luo, Yun-Cheng; Chen, Hong-Xin; Chuang, Yi-Ta

2008-01-01

Recently, a lot of open source e-learning platforms have been offered for free in the Internet. We thus incorporate the intelligent diagnosis and assessment tool into an open software e-learning platform developed for programming language courses, wherein the proposed learning diagnosis assessment tools based on text mining and machine learning…

COMPOSE-HPC: A Transformational Approach to Exascale

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bernholdt, David E; Allan, Benjamin A.; Armstrong, Robert C.

2012-04-01

The goal of the COMPOSE-HPC project is to 'democratize' tools for automatic transformation of program source code so that it becomes tractable for the developers of scientific applications to create and use their own transformations reliably and safely. This paper describes our approach to this challenge, the creation of the KNOT tool chain, which includes tools for the creation of annotation languages to control the transformations (PAUL), to perform the transformations (ROTE), and optimization and code generation (BRAID), which can be used individually and in combination. We also provide examples of current and future uses of the KNOT tools, whichmore » include transforming code to use different programming models and environments, providing tests that can be used to detect errors in software or its execution, as well as composition of software written in different programming languages, or with different threading patterns.« less

A Sample Corpus Integration in Language Teacher Education through Coursebook Evaluation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Asik, Asuman

2017-01-01

The use of corpora has an increased interest in language teaching in the past two decades. Many corpora have been utilized for several purposes in language classrooms directly or indirectly. In spite of the increasing awareness towards the use of corpora and the corpus tools, language teacher education programs still do not include corpus…

Integrated verification and testing system (IVTS) for HAL/S programs

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Senn, E. H.; Ames, K. R.; Smith, K. A.

1983-01-01

The IVTS is a large software system designed to support user-controlled verification analysis and testing activities for programs written in the HAL/S language. The system is composed of a user interface and user command language, analysis tools and an organized data base of host system files. The analysis tools are of four major types: (1) static analysis, (2) symbolic execution, (3) dynamic analysis (testing), and (4) documentation enhancement. The IVTS requires a split HAL/S compiler, divided at the natural separation point between the parser/lexical analyzer phase and the target machine code generator phase. The IVTS uses the internal program form (HALMAT) between these two phases as primary input for the analysis tools. The dynamic analysis component requires some way to 'execute' the object HAL/S program. The execution medium may be an interpretive simulation or an actual host or target machine.

Multiprocessor programming environment

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Smith, M.B.; Fornaro, R.

Programming tools and techniques have been well developed for traditional uniprocessor computer systems. The focus of this research project is on the development of a programming environment for a high speed real time heterogeneous multiprocessor system, with special emphasis on languages and compilers. The new tools and techniques will allow a smooth transition for programmers with experience only on single processor systems.

Using a graphical programming language to write CAMAC/GPIB instrument drivers

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Zambrana, Horacio; Johanson, William

1991-01-01

To reduce the complexities of conventional programming, graphical software was used in the development of instrumentation drivers. The graphical software provides a standard set of tools (graphical subroutines) which are sufficient to program the most sophisticated CAMAC/GPIB drivers. These tools were used and instrumentation drivers were successfully developed for operating CAMAC/GPIB hardware from two different manufacturers: LeCroy and DSP. The use of these tools is presented for programming a LeCroy A/D Waveform Analyzer.

Languaging about Intercultural Communication: The Occurrence and Conceptual Focus of Intracultural Peer Collaborative Dialogues

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McNeil, Levi

2017-01-01

This study examined intracultural peers using language as a cognitive tool (i.e. "languaging") to recognise, understand, and explain intercultural communication concepts. In pairs, 42 Korean public school teachers enrolled in an in-service program completed a describe-interpret-evaluate task through synchronous computer-mediated…

Suggested Curriculum Guidelines for an Effective Bilingual Program, 1972-1973. Destrezas Comunicativas del Idioma Espanol. Spanish Language Skills. Third Grade, Level 3.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Artesia Public Schools, NM.

This volume contains suggested curriculum guidelines for an effective bilingual program, with specific focus on Spanish language skills for the third grade level. The philosophy of the program views bilingual education as a vehicle and pedagogical tool to be used to better prepare all children to function in society. The point of departure for…

Suggested Curriculum Guidelines for an Effective Bilingual Program. 1972-1973. Destrezas Comunicativas del Idioma Espanol. Spanish Language Skills. Second Grade, Level 2.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Artesia Public Schools, NM.

This volume contains suggested curriculum guidelines for an effective bilingual program, with specific focus on Spanish language skills for the second grade level. The philosophy of the program views bilingual education as a vehicle and pedagogical tool to be used to better prepare all children to function in society. The point of departure for…

Teaching GUI-Programming Concepts to Prospective K12 ICT Teachers: MIT App Inventor as an Alternative to Text-Based Languages

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mihci, Can; Ozdener Donmez, Nesrin

2017-01-01

The purpose of this research is to investigate the short and long-term effects of using GUI-oriented visual Blocks-Based Programming languages (BBL) as a 2nd tier tool when teaching programming to prospective K12 ICT teachers. In a mixed-method approach, the effect on academic success as well as the impact on professional opinions and preferences…

From Domain Specific Languages to DEVS Components: Application to Cognitive M&S

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-04-01

AND SUBTITLE From Domain Specific Languages to DEVS Components: Application to Cognitive M&S 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ...that is devoid of any DEVS and programming language constructs (Figure 4). The key idea being domain specialists need not delve in the DEVS world to...DSL. DSLs can be created using many available tools and technologies such as: Generic Modeling Environment (GME) [23], Xtext, Ruby, Scala and many

Targeted Observation of ELL Instruction as a Tool in the Preparation of School Leaders

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baecher, Laura; Knoll, Marcia; Patti, Janet

2016-01-01

Preparing school administrators to promote effective instruction of English language learners (ELLs) is an important dimension of today's educational leadership programs, requiring innovative program activities. This study explores school leadership candidates' use of an observation tool targeted to ELL instruction that incorporated guided video…

A Cluster Randomized-Controlled Trial of the Impact of the Tools of the Mind Curriculum on Self-Regulation in Canadian Preschoolers.

PubMed

Solomon, Tracy; Plamondon, Andre; O'Hara, Arland; Finch, Heather; Goco, Geraldine; Chaban, Peter; Huggins, Lorrie; Ferguson, Bruce; Tannock, Rosemary

2017-01-01

Early self-regulation predicts school readiness, academic success, and quality of life in adulthood. Its development in the preschool years is rapid and also malleable. Thus, preschool curricula that promote the development of self-regulation may help set children on a more positive developmental trajectory. We conducted a cluster-randomized controlled trial of the Tools of the Mind preschool curriculum, a program that targets self-regulation through imaginative play and self-regulatory language (Tools; clinical trials identifier NCT02462733). Previous research with Tools is limited, with mixed evidence of its effectiveness. Moreover, it is unclear whether it would benefit all preschoolers or primarily those with poorly developed cognitive capacities (e.g., language, executive function, attention). The study goals were to ascertain whether the Tools program leads to greater gains in self-regulation compared to Playing to Learn (YMCA PTL), another play based program that does not target self-regulation specifically, and whether the effects were moderated by children's initial language and hyperactivity/inattention. Two hundred and sixty 3- to 4-year-olds attending 20 largely urban daycares were randomly assigned, at the site level, to receive either Tools or YMCA PTL (the business-as-usual curriculum) for 15 months. We assessed self-regulation at pre-, mid and post intervention, using two executive function tasks, and two questionnaires regarding behavior at home and at school, to capture development in cognitive as well as socio-emotional aspects of self-regulation. Fidelity data showed that only the teachers at the Tools sites implemented Tools, and did so with reasonable success. We found that children who received Tools made greater gains on a behavioral measure of executive function than their YMCA PTL peers, but the difference was significant only for those children whose parents rated them high in hyperactivity/inattention initially. The effect of Tools did not vary with children's initial language skills. We suggest that, as both programs promote quality play and that the two groups fared similarly well overall, Tools and YMCA PTL may be effective curricula choices for a diverse preschool classroom. However, Tools may be advantageous in classrooms with children experiencing greater challenges with self-regulation, at no apparent cost to those less challenged in this regard.

A Cluster Randomized-Controlled Trial of the Impact of the Tools of the Mind Curriculum on Self-Regulation in Canadian Preschoolers

PubMed Central

Solomon, Tracy; Plamondon, Andre; O’Hara, Arland; Finch, Heather; Goco, Geraldine; Chaban, Peter; Huggins, Lorrie; Ferguson, Bruce; Tannock, Rosemary

2018-01-01

Early self-regulation predicts school readiness, academic success, and quality of life in adulthood. Its development in the preschool years is rapid and also malleable. Thus, preschool curricula that promote the development of self-regulation may help set children on a more positive developmental trajectory. We conducted a cluster-randomized controlled trial of the Tools of the Mind preschool curriculum, a program that targets self-regulation through imaginative play and self-regulatory language (Tools; clinical trials identifier NCT02462733). Previous research with Tools is limited, with mixed evidence of its effectiveness. Moreover, it is unclear whether it would benefit all preschoolers or primarily those with poorly developed cognitive capacities (e.g., language, executive function, attention). The study goals were to ascertain whether the Tools program leads to greater gains in self-regulation compared to Playing to Learn (YMCA PTL), another play based program that does not target self-regulation specifically, and whether the effects were moderated by children’s initial language and hyperactivity/inattention. Two hundred and sixty 3- to 4-year-olds attending 20 largely urban daycares were randomly assigned, at the site level, to receive either Tools or YMCA PTL (the business-as-usual curriculum) for 15 months. We assessed self-regulation at pre-, mid and post intervention, using two executive function tasks, and two questionnaires regarding behavior at home and at school, to capture development in cognitive as well as socio-emotional aspects of self-regulation. Fidelity data showed that only the teachers at the Tools sites implemented Tools, and did so with reasonable success. We found that children who received Tools made greater gains on a behavioral measure of executive function than their YMCA PTL peers, but the difference was significant only for those children whose parents rated them high in hyperactivity/inattention initially. The effect of Tools did not vary with children’s initial language skills. We suggest that, as both programs promote quality play and that the two groups fared similarly well overall, Tools and YMCA PTL may be effective curricula choices for a diverse preschool classroom. However, Tools may be advantageous in classrooms with children experiencing greater challenges with self-regulation, at no apparent cost to those less challenged in this regard. PMID:29403411

Ada Structure Design Language (ASDL)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Chedrawi, Lutfi

1986-01-01

An artist acquires all the necessary tools before painting a scene. In the same analogy, a software engineer needs the necessary tools to provide their design with the proper means for implementation. Ada provide these tools. Yet, as an artist's painting needs a brochure to accompany it for further explanation of the scene, an Ada design also needs a document along with it to show the design in its detailed structure and hierarchical order. Ada could be self-explanatory in small programs not exceeding fifty lines of code in length. But, in a large environment, ranging from thousands of lines and above, Ada programs need to be well documented to be preserved and maintained. The language used to specify an Ada document is called Ada Structure Design Language (ASDL). This language sets some rules to help derive a well formatted Ada detailed design document. The rules are defined to meet the needs of a project manager, a maintenance team, a programmer and a systems designer. The design document templates, the document extractor, and the rules set forth by the ASDL are explained in detail.

Summary of the Ratfor language, an extended portable dialect called REP, its style and flavor, and details of its implementation on the PDP-10

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Figen, J.

1981-09-10

Ratfor (RATional FORtran) is a dialect of Fortran that allows structured programming and the use of simple macros. It is the language of the Software Tools package, and is documented in the book Software Tools. It has proved significantly easier than Fortran to read, write, and understand. Although debugging is slightly harder in Ratfor than in Fortran, there is usually less of it to do, since Ratfor lends itself to better program design. Ratfor operates as a preprocessor to any existing Fortran system. It is relatively easy, using Ratfor, to write programs that are portable with little or no changemore » to any environment that supports standard Fortran. REP (Ratfor Extended and Portable) is an extended version of Ratfor. It is fully upward compatible with the Addison-Wesley translator, though there are a few divergences from certain Unix and Software Tools User Group dialects. The principal feature of REP is its fully developed macro facility, a language within a language, capable of doing such things as creating new data types, data structuring, recursive procedures, and much more, portably, and in the spirit of Ratfor, but there are many other lesser though nevertheless important extensions.« less

Visual Basic Applications to Physics Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chitu, Catalin; Inpuscatu, Razvan Constantin; Viziru, Marilena

2011-01-01

Derived from basic language, VB (Visual Basic) is a programming language focused on the video interface component. With graphics and functional components implemented, the programmer is able to bring and use their components to achieve the desired application in a relatively short time. Language VB is a useful tool in physics teaching by creating…

Just-in-Time Teaching: A Tool for Enhancing Student Engagement in Advanced Foreign Language Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abreu, Laurel; Knouse, Stephanie

2014-01-01

Scholars have indicated a need for further research on effective pedagogical strategies designed for advanced foreign language courses in the postsecondary setting, especially in light of decreased enrollments at this level and the elimination of foreign language programs altogether in some institutions (Paesani & Allen, 2012). This article…

A programming language for composable DNA circuits

PubMed Central

Phillips, Andrew; Cardelli, Luca

2009-01-01

Recently, a range of information-processing circuits have been implemented in DNA by using strand displacement as their main computational mechanism. Examples include digital logic circuits and catalytic signal amplification circuits that function as efficient molecular detectors. As new paradigms for DNA computation emerge, the development of corresponding languages and tools for these paradigms will help to facilitate the design of DNA circuits and their automatic compilation to nucleotide sequences. We present a programming language for designing and simulating DNA circuits in which strand displacement is the main computational mechanism. The language includes basic elements of sequence domains, toeholds and branch migration, and assumes that strands do not possess any secondary structure. The language is used to model and simulate a variety of circuits, including an entropy-driven catalytic gate, a simple gate motif for synthesizing large-scale circuits and a scheme for implementing an arbitrary system of chemical reactions. The language is a first step towards the design of modelling and simulation tools for DNA strand displacement, which complements the emergence of novel implementation strategies for DNA computing. PMID:19535415

A programming language for composable DNA circuits.

PubMed

Phillips, Andrew; Cardelli, Luca

2009-08-06

Recently, a range of information-processing circuits have been implemented in DNA by using strand displacement as their main computational mechanism. Examples include digital logic circuits and catalytic signal amplification circuits that function as efficient molecular detectors. As new paradigms for DNA computation emerge, the development of corresponding languages and tools for these paradigms will help to facilitate the design of DNA circuits and their automatic compilation to nucleotide sequences. We present a programming language for designing and simulating DNA circuits in which strand displacement is the main computational mechanism. The language includes basic elements of sequence domains, toeholds and branch migration, and assumes that strands do not possess any secondary structure. The language is used to model and simulate a variety of circuits, including an entropy-driven catalytic gate, a simple gate motif for synthesizing large-scale circuits and a scheme for implementing an arbitrary system of chemical reactions. The language is a first step towards the design of modelling and simulation tools for DNA strand displacement, which complements the emergence of novel implementation strategies for DNA computing.

Continuation of research into language concepts for the mission support environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1991-01-01

A concept for a more intuitive and graphically based Computation (Comp) Builder was developed. The Graphical Comp Builder Prototype was developed, which is an X Window based graphical tool that allows the user to build Comps using graphical symbols. Investigation was conducted to determine the availability and suitability of the Ada programming language for the development of future control center type software. The Space Station Freedom Project identified Ada as the desirable programming language for the development of Space Station Control Center software systems.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bachan, John

Chisel is a new open-source hardware construction language developed at UC Berkeley that supports advanced hardware design using highly parameterized generators and layered domain-specific hardware languages. Chisel is embedded in the Scala programming language, which raises the level of hardware design abstraction by providing concepts including object orientation, functional programming, parameterized types, and type inference. From the same source, Chisel can generate a high-speed C++-based cycle-accurate software simulator, or low-level Verilog designed to pass on to standard ASIC or FPGA tools for synthesis and place and route.

ONR Far East Scientific Bulletin, Volume 7, Number 2, April-June 1982,

DTIC Science & Technology

1982-01-01

contained source code . - PAL (Program Automation Language) PAL is a system design language that automatically generates an executable program from a...NTIS c3&1 DTIC TliB Unn ’l.- A ElJustitt for _ By - Distrib~tion Availability Codes Avail and/or Di st Speojal iii 0- CONTENTS~ P age r’A Gflmpse at...tools exist at ECL in prototype forms. Like most major computer manufacturers, they have also extended high level languages such as FORTRAN , COBOL

Deciding alternative left turn signal phases using expert systems

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Chang, E.C.P.

1988-01-01

The Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) conducted a study to investigate the feasibility of applying artificial intelligence (AI) technology and expert systems (ES) design concepts to a traffic engineering problem. Prototype systems were developed to analyze user input, evaluate various reasoning, and suggest suitable left turn phase treatment. These systems were developed using AI programming tools on IBM PC/XT/AT-compatible microcomputers. Two slightly different systems were designed using AI languages; another was built with a knowledge engineering tool. These systems include the PD PROLOG and TURBO PROLOG AI programs, as well as the INSIGHT Production Rule Language.

The Inclusion of Children with Special Educational Needs in an Intensive French as a Second-Language Program: From Theory to Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Joy, Rhonda; Murphy, Elizabeth

2012-01-01

This paper portrays the activity system of eight classes of Grade 6 children with special educational needs in an Intensive French as a second-language education program. Classroom norms and tools reflected a social-interactionist and social-constructivist approach with scaffolding, social interaction, multiple modes of representing, holistic,…

Algorithms and programming tools for image processing on the MPP

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reeves, A. P.

1985-01-01

Topics addressed include: data mapping and rotational algorithms for the Massively Parallel Processor (MPP); Parallel Pascal language; documentation for the Parallel Pascal Development system; and a description of the Parallel Pascal language used on the MPP.

Towards programming languages for genetic engineering of living cells

PubMed Central

Pedersen, Michael; Phillips, Andrew

2009-01-01

Synthetic biology aims at producing novel biological systems to carry out some desired and well-defined functions. An ultimate dream is to design these systems at a high level of abstraction using engineering-based tools and programming languages, press a button, and have the design translated to DNA sequences that can be synthesized and put to work in living cells. We introduce such a programming language, which allows logical interactions between potentially undetermined proteins and genes to be expressed in a modular manner. Programs can be translated by a compiler into sequences of standard biological parts, a process that relies on logic programming and prototype databases that contain known biological parts and protein interactions. Programs can also be translated to reactions, allowing simulations to be carried out. While current limitations on available data prevent full use of the language in practical applications, the language can be used to develop formal models of synthetic systems, which are otherwise often presented by informal notations. The language can also serve as a concrete proposal on which future language designs can be discussed, and can help to guide the emerging standard of biological parts which so far has focused on biological, rather than logical, properties of parts. PMID:19369220

Towards programming languages for genetic engineering of living cells.

PubMed

Pedersen, Michael; Phillips, Andrew

2009-08-06

Synthetic biology aims at producing novel biological systems to carry out some desired and well-defined functions. An ultimate dream is to design these systems at a high level of abstraction using engineering-based tools and programming languages, press a button, and have the design translated to DNA sequences that can be synthesized and put to work in living cells. We introduce such a programming language, which allows logical interactions between potentially undetermined proteins and genes to be expressed in a modular manner. Programs can be translated by a compiler into sequences of standard biological parts, a process that relies on logic programming and prototype databases that contain known biological parts and protein interactions. Programs can also be translated to reactions, allowing simulations to be carried out. While current limitations on available data prevent full use of the language in practical applications, the language can be used to develop formal models of synthetic systems, which are otherwise often presented by informal notations. The language can also serve as a concrete proposal on which future language designs can be discussed, and can help to guide the emerging standard of biological parts which so far has focused on biological, rather than logical, properties of parts.

A comparative study of programming languages for next-generation astrodynamics systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Eichhorn, Helge; Cano, Juan Luis; McLean, Frazer; Anderl, Reiner

2018-03-01

Due to the computationally intensive nature of astrodynamics tasks, astrodynamicists have relied on compiled programming languages such as Fortran for the development of astrodynamics software. Interpreted languages such as Python, on the other hand, offer higher flexibility and development speed thereby increasing the productivity of the programmer. While interpreted languages are generally slower than compiled languages, recent developments such as just-in-time (JIT) compilers or transpilers have been able to close this speed gap significantly. Another important factor for the usefulness of a programming language is its wider ecosystem which consists of the available open-source packages and development tools such as integrated development environments or debuggers. This study compares three compiled languages and three interpreted languages, which were selected based on their popularity within the scientific programming community and technical merit. The three compiled candidate languages are Fortran, C++, and Java. Python, Matlab, and Julia were selected as the interpreted candidate languages. All six languages are assessed and compared to each other based on their features, performance, and ease-of-use through the implementation of idiomatic solutions to classical astrodynamics problems. We show that compiled languages still provide the best performance for astrodynamics applications, but JIT-compiled dynamic languages have reached a competitive level of speed and offer an attractive compromise between numerical performance and programmer productivity.

Using a visual programming language to bridge the cognitive gap between a novice's mental model and program code

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Smith, Bryan J.

Current research suggests that many students do not know how to program very well at the conclusion of their introductory programming course. We believe that a reason novices have such difficulties learning programming is because engineering novices often learn through a lecture format where someone with programming knowledge lectures to novices, the novices attempt to absorb the content, and then reproduce it during exams. By primarily appealing to programming novices who prefer to understand visually, we research whether programming novices understand programming better if computer science concepts are presented using a visual programming language than if these programs are presented using a text-based programming language. This method builds upon previous research that suggests that most engineering students are visual learners, and we propose that using a flow-based visual programming language will address some of the most important and difficult topics to novices of programming. We use an existing flow-model tool, RAPTOR, to test this method, and share the program understanding results using this theory.

C-Language Integrated Production System, Version 5.1

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Riley, Gary; Donnell, Brian; Ly, Huyen-Anh VU; Culbert, Chris; Savely, Robert T.; Mccoy, Daniel J.; Giarratano, Joseph

1992-01-01

CLIPS 5.1 provides cohesive software tool for handling wide variety of knowledge with support for three different programming paradigms: rule-based, object-oriented, and procedural. Rule-based programming provides representation of knowledge by use of heuristics. Object-oriented programming enables modeling of complex systems as modular components. Procedural programming enables CLIPS to represent knowledge in ways similar to those allowed in such languages as C, Pascal, Ada, and LISP. Working with CLIPS 5.1, one can develop expert-system software by use of rule-based programming only, object-oriented programming only, procedural programming only, or combinations of the three.

Tolerant (parallel) Programming

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

DiNucci, David C.; Bailey, David H. (Technical Monitor)

1997-01-01

In order to be truly portable, a program must be tolerant of a wide range of development and execution environments, and a parallel program is just one which must be tolerant of a very wide range. This paper first defines the term "tolerant programming", then describes many layers of tools to accomplish it. The primary focus is on F-Nets, a formal model for expressing computation as a folded partial-ordering of operations, thereby providing an architecture-independent expression of tolerant parallel algorithms. For implementing F-Nets, Cooperative Data Sharing (CDS) is a subroutine package for implementing communication efficiently in a large number of environments (e.g. shared memory and message passing). Software Cabling (SC), a very-high-level graphical programming language for building large F-Nets, possesses many of the features normally expected from today's computer languages (e.g. data abstraction, array operations). Finally, L2(sup 3) is a CASE tool which facilitates the construction, compilation, execution, and debugging of SC programs.

Design of a Syntax Validation Tool for Requirements Analysis Using Structured Analysis and Design Technique (SADT)

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-09-01

analysis phase of the software life cycle (16:1-1). While editing a SADT diagram, the tool should be able to check whether or not structured analysis...diag-ams are valid for the SADT’s syntax, produce error messages, do error recovery, and perform editing suggestions. Thus, this tool must have the...directed editors are editors which use the syn- tax of the programming language while editing a program. While text editors treat programs as text, syntax

The Role of Discussion Boards in a University Blended Learning Program (El papel de los foros de discusión en un programa universitario de aprendizaje mixto)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

González Moreno, Rosa Isabel

2011-01-01

Discussion boards as tools in blended "English language" learning programs have unique characteristics when compared to other synchronous and asynchronous communication tools that are different. Therefore, it is important to investigate the way they operate, their role within a given program and the students', teachers' and tutors'…

Investigation, Development, and Evaluation of Performance Proving for Fault-tolerant Computers

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Levitt, K. N.; Schwartz, R.; Hare, D.; Moore, J. S.; Melliar-Smith, P. M.; Shostak, R. E.; Boyer, R. S.; Green, M. W.; Elliott, W. D.

1983-01-01

A number of methodologies for verifying systems and computer based tools that assist users in verifying their systems were developed. These tools were applied to verify in part the SIFT ultrareliable aircraft computer. Topics covered included: STP theorem prover; design verification of SIFT; high level language code verification; assembly language level verification; numerical algorithm verification; verification of flight control programs; and verification of hardware logic.

Sample Language of Modified Contract Elements from Existing CBAs, MOUs, or EWAs to Support Turnaround

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mass Insight Education (NJ1), 2011

2011-01-01

Organized by the key conditions areas for turnaround, "People, Program, Time and Money," this tool offers sample language for each contract element to serve as a model for modifications from a traditional CBA that may support a district's turnaround efforts. Sample language is offered from existing provisions in district-wide collective bargaining…

How the strengths of Lisp-family languages facilitate building complex and flexible bioinformatics applications.

PubMed

Khomtchouk, Bohdan B; Weitz, Edmund; Karp, Peter D; Wahlestedt, Claes

2018-05-01

We present a rationale for expanding the presence of the Lisp family of programming languages in bioinformatics and computational biology research. Put simply, Lisp-family languages enable programmers to more quickly write programs that run faster than in other languages. Languages such as Common Lisp, Scheme and Clojure facilitate the creation of powerful and flexible software that is required for complex and rapidly evolving domains like biology. We will point out several important key features that distinguish languages of the Lisp family from other programming languages, and we will explain how these features can aid researchers in becoming more productive and creating better code. We will also show how these features make these languages ideal tools for artificial intelligence and machine learning applications. We will specifically stress the advantages of domain-specific languages (DSLs): languages that are specialized to a particular area, and thus not only facilitate easier research problem formulation, but also aid in the establishment of standards and best programming practices as applied to the specific research field at hand. DSLs are particularly easy to build in Common Lisp, the most comprehensive Lisp dialect, which is commonly referred to as the 'programmable programming language'. We are convinced that Lisp grants programmers unprecedented power to build increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence systems that may ultimately transform machine learning and artificial intelligence research in bioinformatics and computational biology.

Test Generator for MATLAB Simulations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Henry, Joel

2011-01-01

MATLAB Automated Test Tool, version 3.0 (MATT 3.0) is a software package that provides automated tools that reduce the time needed for extensive testing of simulation models that have been constructed in the MATLAB programming language by use of the Simulink and Real-Time Workshop programs. MATT 3.0 runs on top of the MATLAB engine application-program interface to communicate with the Simulink engine. MATT 3.0 automatically generates source code from the models, generates custom input data for testing both the models and the source code, and generates graphs and other presentations that facilitate comparison of the outputs of the models and the source code for the same input data. Context-sensitive and fully searchable help is provided in HyperText Markup Language (HTML) format.

Architecture-Adaptive Computing Environment: A Tool for Teaching Parallel Programming

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dorband, John E.; Aburdene, Maurice F.

2002-01-01

Recently, networked and cluster computation have become very popular. This paper is an introduction to a new C based parallel language for architecture-adaptive programming, aCe C. The primary purpose of aCe (Architecture-adaptive Computing Environment) is to encourage programmers to implement applications on parallel architectures by providing them the assurance that future architectures will be able to run their applications with a minimum of modification. A secondary purpose is to encourage computer architects to develop new types of architectures by providing an easily implemented software development environment and a library of test applications. This new language should be an ideal tool to teach parallel programming. In this paper, we will focus on some fundamental features of aCe C.

Aspect-Oriented Programming

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Elrad, Tzilla (Editor); Filman, Robert E. (Editor); Bader, Atef (Editor)

2001-01-01

Computer science has experienced an evolution in programming languages and systems from the crude assembly and machine codes of the earliest computers through concepts such as formula translation, procedural programming, structured programming, functional programming, logic programming, and programming with abstract data types. Each of these steps in programming technology has advanced our ability to achieve clear separation of concerns at the source code level. Currently, the dominant programming paradigm is object-oriented programming - the idea that one builds a software system by decomposing a problem into objects and then writing the code of those objects. Such objects abstract together behavior and data into a single conceptual and physical entity. Object-orientation is reflected in the entire spectrum of current software development methodologies and tools - we have OO methodologies, analysis and design tools, and OO programming languages. Writing complex applications such as graphical user interfaces, operating systems, and distributed applications while maintaining comprehensible source code has been made possible with OOP. Success at developing simpler systems leads to aspirations for greater complexity. Object orientation is a clever idea, but has certain limitations. We are now seeing that many requirements do not decompose neatly into behavior centered on a single locus. Object technology has difficulty localizing concerns invoking global constraints and pandemic behaviors, appropriately segregating concerns, and applying domain-specific knowledge. Post-object programming (POP) mechanisms that look to increase the expressiveness of the OO paradigm are a fertile arena for current research. Examples of POP technologies include domain-specific languages, generative programming, generic programming, constraint languages, reflection and metaprogramming, feature-oriented development, views/viewpoints, and asynchronous message brokering. (Czarneclu and Eisenecker s book includes a good survey of many of these technologies).

Interactive Graphics Tools for Analysis of MOLA and Other Data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Frey, H.; Roark, J.; Sakimoto, S.

2000-01-01

We have developed several interactive analysis tools based on the IDL programming language for the analysis of Mars Orbiting Laser Altimeter (MOLA) profile and gridded data which are available to the general community.

Using an Internally-Developed Tool to Assess Intercultural Competence in Short-Term Study Abroad Programs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kartoshkina, Yuliya

2013-01-01

An internally-developed tool was developed to assess the intercultural competence of students taking part in short-term study abroad programs. Four scales were built to assess possible change in students' host culture knowledge, cross-cultural awareness, cross-cultural adaptation, and self-assessed foreign language proficiency. Enrollment in a…

Report on the ''ESO Python Boot Camp — Pilot Version''

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dias, B.; Milli, J.

2017-03-01

The Python programming language is becoming very popular within the astronomical community. Python is a high-level language with multiple applications including database management, handling FITS images and tables, statistical analysis, and more advanced topics. Python is a very powerful tool both for astronomical publications and for observatory operations. Since the best way to learn a new programming language is through practice, we therefore organised a two-day hands-on workshop to share expertise among ESO colleagues. We report here the outcome and feedback from this pilot event.

An Analysis of the INGRES Database Management System Applications Program Development Tools and Programming Environment

DTIC Science & Technology

1986-12-01

Position cursor over the naBe of a report, then use the appropriate enu iteffl to perforn an operation on that report. Naae Owner RBF? Last changed...LANGUAGE- INDEPENDENT, PORTABLE FILE ACCESS SY STEM A MODEL FOR AUTOMATIC FILE AND PROGRAM DESIGN IN BUSINE SS APPLICATION SYSTEM GENERALLY APPLICABLE...Article Description Year: 1988 Title: FLASH : A LANGUAGE- INDEPENDENT, PORTABLE FILE ACCESS SY STEM Authors: ALLCHIN.J.E., KaLER.A.H., WIEDERHOL.D.G

Evaluation of automated decisionmaking methodologies and development of an integrated robotic system simulation. Volume 1: Study results

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lowrie, J. W.; Fermelia, A. J.; Haley, D. C.; Gremban, K. D.; Vanbaalen, J.; Walsh, R. W.

1982-01-01

A variety of artificial intelligence techniques which could be used with regard to NASA space applications and robotics were evaluated. The techniques studied were decision tree manipulators, problem solvers, rule based systems, logic programming languages, representation language languages, and expert systems. The overall structure of a robotic simulation tool was defined and a framework for that tool developed. Nonlinear and linearized dynamics equations were formulated for n link manipulator configurations. A framework for the robotic simulation was established which uses validated manipulator component models connected according to a user defined configuration.

How the strengths of Lisp-family languages facilitate building complex and flexible bioinformatics applications

PubMed Central

Khomtchouk, Bohdan B; Weitz, Edmund; Karp, Peter D; Wahlestedt, Claes

2018-01-01

Abstract We present a rationale for expanding the presence of the Lisp family of programming languages in bioinformatics and computational biology research. Put simply, Lisp-family languages enable programmers to more quickly write programs that run faster than in other languages. Languages such as Common Lisp, Scheme and Clojure facilitate the creation of powerful and flexible software that is required for complex and rapidly evolving domains like biology. We will point out several important key features that distinguish languages of the Lisp family from other programming languages, and we will explain how these features can aid researchers in becoming more productive and creating better code. We will also show how these features make these languages ideal tools for artificial intelligence and machine learning applications. We will specifically stress the advantages of domain-specific languages (DSLs): languages that are specialized to a particular area, and thus not only facilitate easier research problem formulation, but also aid in the establishment of standards and best programming practices as applied to the specific research field at hand. DSLs are particularly easy to build in Common Lisp, the most comprehensive Lisp dialect, which is commonly referred to as the ‘programmable programming language’. We are convinced that Lisp grants programmers unprecedented power to build increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence systems that may ultimately transform machine learning and artificial intelligence research in bioinformatics and computational biology. PMID:28040748

Using a Native American Language as a Classroom Teaching Tool: Teaching Shoshoni Poetry.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crum, Beverly Lorene

Children responded enthusiastically to a program that used Shoshoni poetry songs to teach some concepts about human languages in general. Twelve children (four Caucasian, eight Native American) in grades 1-3 and their parents met for four 1-hour sessions. The lessons focused on the sound, meaning, and word order of the Shoshoni language; Shoshoni…

Learning with a Missing Sense: What Can We Learn from the Interaction of a Deaf Child with a Turtle?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Miller, Paul

2009-01-01

This case study reports on the progress of Navon, a 13-year-old boy with prelingual deafness, over a 3-month period following exposure to Logo, a computer programming language that visualizes specific programming commands by means of a virtual drawing tool called the Turtle. Despite an almost complete lack of skills in spoken and sign language,…

Structure and software tools of AIDA.

PubMed

Duisterhout, J S; Franken, B; Witte, F

1987-01-01

AIDA consists of a set of software tools to allow for fast development and easy-to-maintain Medical Information Systems. AIDA supports all aspects of such a system both during development and operation. It contains tools to build and maintain forms for interactive data entry and on-line input validation, a database management system including a data dictionary and a set of run-time routines for database access, and routines for querying the database and output formatting. Unlike an application generator, the user of AIDA may select parts of the tools to fulfill his needs and program other subsystems not developed with AIDA. The AIDA software uses as host language the ANSI-standard programming language MUMPS, an interpreted language embedded in an integrated database and programming environment. This greatly facilitates the portability of AIDA applications. The database facilities supported by AIDA are based on a relational data model. This data model is built on top of the MUMPS database, the so-called global structure. This relational model overcomes the restrictions of the global structure regarding string length. The global structure is especially powerful for sorting purposes. Using MUMPS as a host language allows the user an easy interface between user-defined data validation checks or other user-defined code and the AIDA tools. AIDA has been designed primarily for prototyping and for the construction of Medical Information Systems in a research environment which requires a flexible approach. The prototyping facility of AIDA operates terminal independent and is even to a great extent multi-lingual. Most of these features are table-driven; this allows on-line changes in the use of terminal type and language, but also causes overhead. AIDA has a set of optimizing tools by which it is possible to build a faster, but (of course) less flexible code from these table definitions. By separating the AIDA software in a source and a run-time version, one is able to write implementation-specific code which can be selected and loaded by a special source loader, being part of the AIDA software. This feature is also accessible for maintaining software on different sites and on different installations.

Simulation environment and graphical visualization environment: a COPD use-case.

PubMed

Huertas-Migueláñez, Mercedes; Mora, Daniel; Cano, Isaac; Maier, Dieter; Gomez-Cabrero, David; Lluch-Ariet, Magí; Miralles, Felip

2014-11-28

Today, many different tools are developed to execute and visualize physiological models that represent the human physiology. Most of these tools run models written in very specific programming languages which in turn simplify the communication among models. Nevertheless, not all of these tools are able to run models written in different programming languages. In addition, interoperability between such models remains an unresolved issue. In this paper we present a simulation environment that allows, first, the execution of models developed in different programming languages and second the communication of parameters to interconnect these models. This simulation environment, developed within the Synergy-COPD project, aims at helping and supporting bio-researchers and medical students understand the internal mechanisms of the human body through the use of physiological models. This tool is composed of a graphical visualization environment, which is a web interface through which the user can interact with the models, and a simulation workflow management system composed of a control module and a data warehouse manager. The control module monitors the correct functioning of the whole system. The data warehouse manager is responsible for managing the stored information and supporting its flow among the different modules. It has been proved that the simulation environment presented here allows the user to research and study the internal mechanisms of the human physiology by the use of models via a graphical visualization environment. A new tool for bio-researchers is ready for deployment in various use cases scenarios.

Analysis of matters associated with the transferring of object-oriented applications to platform .Net using C# programming language

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sarsimbayeva, S. M.; Kospanova, K. K.

2015-11-01

The article provides the discussion of matters associated with the problems of transferring of object-oriented Windows applications from C++ programming language to .Net platform using C# programming language. C++ has always been considered to be the best language for the software development, but the implicit mistakes that come along with the tool may lead to infinite memory leaks and other errors. The platform .Net and the C#, made by Microsoft, are the solutions to the issues mentioned above. The world economy and production are highly demanding applications developed by C++, but the new language with its stability and transferability to .Net will bring many advantages. An example can be presented using the applications that imitate the work of queuing systems. Authors solved the problem of transferring of an application, imitating seaport works, from C++ to the platform .Net using C# in the scope of Visual Studio.

Distributed and parallel Ada and the Ada 9X recommendations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Volz, Richard A.; Goldsack, Stephen J.; Theriault, R.; Waldrop, Raymond S.; Holzbacher-Valero, A. A.

1992-01-01

Recently, the DoD has sponsored work towards a new version of Ada, intended to support the construction of distributed systems. The revised version, often called Ada 9X, will become the new standard sometimes in the 1990s. It is intended that Ada 9X should provide language features giving limited support for distributed system construction. The requirements for such features are given. Many of the most advanced computer applications involve embedded systems that are comprised of parallel processors or networks of distributed computers. If Ada is to become the widely adopted language envisioned by many, it is essential that suitable compilers and tools be available to facilitate the creation of distributed and parallel Ada programs for these applications. The major languages issues impacting distributed and parallel programming are reviewed, and some principles upon which distributed/parallel language systems should be built are suggested. Based upon these, alternative language concepts for distributed/parallel programming are analyzed.

Software attribute visualization for high integrity software

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Pollock, G.M.

1998-03-01

This report documents a prototype tool developed to investigate the use of visualization and virtual reality technologies for improving software surety confidence. The tool is utilized within the execution phase of the software life cycle. It provides a capability to monitor an executing program against prespecified requirements constraints provided in a program written in the requirements specification language SAGE. The resulting Software Attribute Visual Analysis Tool (SAVAnT) also provides a technique to assess the completeness of a software specification.

Application of Modern Fortran to Spacecraft Trajectory Design and Optimization

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Williams, Jacob; Falck, Robert D.; Beekman, Izaak B.

2018-01-01

In this paper, applications of the modern Fortran programming language to the field of spacecraft trajectory optimization and design are examined. Modern object-oriented Fortran has many advantages for scientific programming, although many legacy Fortran aerospace codes have not been upgraded to use the newer standards (or have been rewritten in other languages perceived to be more modern). NASA's Copernicus spacecraft trajectory optimization program, originally a combination of Fortran 77 and Fortran 95, has attempted to keep up with modern standards and makes significant use of the new language features. Various algorithms and methods are presented from trajectory tools such as Copernicus, as well as modern Fortran open source libraries and other projects.

Automated Engineering Design (AED); An approach to automated documentation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mcclure, C. W.

1970-01-01

The automated engineering design (AED) is reviewed, consisting of a high level systems programming language, a series of modular precoded subroutines, and a set of powerful software machine tools that effectively automate the production and design of new languages. AED is used primarily for development of problem and user-oriented languages. Software production phases are diagramed, and factors which inhibit effective documentation are evaluated.

The Academic English Language Needs of Industrial Design Students in UiTM Kedah, Malaysia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Adzmi, Nor Aslah; Bidin, Samsiah; Ibrahim, Syazliyati; Jusoff, Kamaruzaman

2009-01-01

The purpose of this study was to analyse the academic English language lacks and needs of Industrial Design students in Universiti Teknologi MARA Kedah (UiTM). It highlights the lacks and needs for English for Academic Purposes in helping the students to succeed in the program through the usage of English language. The research tools used were in…

A Survey of Quantum Programming Languages: History, Methods, and Tools

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-01-01

and entanglement , to achieve computational solutions to certain problems in less time (fewer computational cycles) than is possible using classical...superposition of quantum bits, entanglement , destructive measurement, and the no-cloning theorem. These differences must be thoroughly understood and even...computers using well-known languages such as C, C++, Java, and rapid prototyping languages such as Maple, Mathematica, and Matlab . A good on-line

Using Movies in EFL Classrooms: A Study Conducted at the English Language Institute (ELI), King Abdul-Aziz University

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kabooha, Raniah Hassen

2016-01-01

The present study sought to examine the attitudes of Saudi English as a foreign language (EFL) learners as well as teachers towards the integration of English movies in their classes as a tool to develop students' language skills. Fifty female intermediate level students studying English in their Preparatory Year Program (PYP) in the English…

Design and Implementation of a Tool for Teaching Programming.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goktepe, Mesut; And Others

1989-01-01

Discussion of the use of computers in education focuses on a graphics-based system for teaching the Pascal programing language for problem solving. Topics discussed include user interface; notification based systems; communication processes; object oriented programing; workstations; graphics architecture; and flowcharts. (18 references) (LRW)

Composable languages for bioinformatics: the NYoSh experiment

PubMed Central

Simi, Manuele

2014-01-01

Language WorkBenches (LWBs) are software engineering tools that help domain experts develop solutions to various classes of problems. Some of these tools focus on non-technical users and provide languages to help organize knowledge while other workbenches provide means to create new programming languages. A key advantage of language workbenches is that they support the seamless composition of independently developed languages. This capability is useful when developing programs that can benefit from different levels of abstraction. We reasoned that language workbenches could be useful to develop bioinformatics software solutions. In order to evaluate the potential of language workbenches in bioinformatics, we tested a prominent workbench by developing an alternative to shell scripting. To illustrate what LWBs and Language Composition can bring to bioinformatics, we report on our design and development of NYoSh (Not Your ordinary Shell). NYoSh was implemented as a collection of languages that can be composed to write programs as expressive and concise as shell scripts. This manuscript offers a concrete illustration of the advantages and current minor drawbacks of using the MPS LWB. For instance, we found that we could implement an environment-aware editor for NYoSh that can assist the programmers when developing scripts for specific execution environments. This editor further provides semantic error detection and can be compiled interactively with an automatic build and deployment system. In contrast to shell scripts, NYoSh scripts can be written in a modern development environment, supporting context dependent intentions and can be extended seamlessly by end-users with new abstractions and language constructs. We further illustrate language extension and composition with LWBs by presenting a tight integration of NYoSh scripts with the GobyWeb system. The NYoSh Workbench prototype, which implements a fully featured integrated development environment for NYoSh is distributed at http://nyosh.campagnelab.org. PMID:24482760

Composable languages for bioinformatics: the NYoSh experiment.

PubMed

Simi, Manuele; Campagne, Fabien

2014-01-01

Language WorkBenches (LWBs) are software engineering tools that help domain experts develop solutions to various classes of problems. Some of these tools focus on non-technical users and provide languages to help organize knowledge while other workbenches provide means to create new programming languages. A key advantage of language workbenches is that they support the seamless composition of independently developed languages. This capability is useful when developing programs that can benefit from different levels of abstraction. We reasoned that language workbenches could be useful to develop bioinformatics software solutions. In order to evaluate the potential of language workbenches in bioinformatics, we tested a prominent workbench by developing an alternative to shell scripting. To illustrate what LWBs and Language Composition can bring to bioinformatics, we report on our design and development of NYoSh (Not Your ordinary Shell). NYoSh was implemented as a collection of languages that can be composed to write programs as expressive and concise as shell scripts. This manuscript offers a concrete illustration of the advantages and current minor drawbacks of using the MPS LWB. For instance, we found that we could implement an environment-aware editor for NYoSh that can assist the programmers when developing scripts for specific execution environments. This editor further provides semantic error detection and can be compiled interactively with an automatic build and deployment system. In contrast to shell scripts, NYoSh scripts can be written in a modern development environment, supporting context dependent intentions and can be extended seamlessly by end-users with new abstractions and language constructs. We further illustrate language extension and composition with LWBs by presenting a tight integration of NYoSh scripts with the GobyWeb system. The NYoSh Workbench prototype, which implements a fully featured integrated development environment for NYoSh is distributed at http://nyosh.campagnelab.org.

Prolog as a Teaching Tool for Relational Database Interrogation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Collier, P. A.; Samson, W. B.

1982-01-01

The use of the Prolog programing language is promoted as the language to use by anyone teaching a course in relational databases. A short introduction to Prolog is followed by a series of examples of queries. Several references are noted for anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding. (MP)

Virtualization for Cost-Effective Teaching of Assembly Language Programming

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cadenas, José O.; Sherratt, R. Simon; Howlett, Des; Guy, Chris G.; Lundqvist, Karsten O.

2015-01-01

This paper describes a virtual system that emulates an ARM-based processor machine, created to replace a traditional hardware-based system for teaching assembly language. The virtual system proposed here integrates, in a single environment, all the development tools necessary to deliver introductory or advanced courses on modern assembly language…

Software packager user's guide

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Callahan, John R.

1995-01-01

Software integration is a growing area of concern for many programmers and software managers because the need to build new programs quickly from existing components is greater than ever. This includes building versions of software products for multiple hardware platforms and operating systems, building programs from components written in different languages, and building systems from components that must execute on different machines in a distributed network. The goal of software integration is to make building new programs from existing components more seamless -- programmers should pay minimal attention to the underlying configuration issues involved. Libraries of reusable components and classes are important tools but only partial solutions to software development problems. Even though software components may have compatible interfaces, there may be other reasons, such as differences between execution environments, why they cannot be integrated. Often, components must be adapted or reimplemented to fit into another application because of implementation differences -- they are implemented in different programming languages, dependent on different operating system resources, or must execute on different physical machines. The software packager is a tool that allows programmers to deal with interfaces between software components and ignore complex integration details. The packager takes modular descriptions of the structure of a software system written in the package specification language and produces an integration program in the form of a makefile. If complex integration tools are needed to integrate a set of components, such as remote procedure call stubs, their use is implied by the packager automatically and stub generation tools are invoked in the corresponding makefile. The programmer deals only with the components themselves and not the details of how to build the system on any given platform.

JASPAR RESTful API: accessing JASPAR data from any programming language.

PubMed

Khan, Aziz; Mathelier, Anthony

2018-05-01

JASPAR is a widely used open-access database of curated, non-redundant transcription factor binding profiles. Currently, data from JASPAR can be retrieved as flat files or by using programming language-specific interfaces. Here, we present a programming language-independent application programming interface (API) to access JASPAR data using the Representational State Transfer (REST) architecture. The REST API enables programmatic access to JASPAR by most programming languages and returns data in eight widely used formats. Several endpoints are available to access the data and an endpoint is available to infer the TF binding profile(s) likely bound by a given DNA binding domain protein sequence. Additionally, it provides an interactive browsable interface for bioinformatics tool developers. This REST API is implemented in Python using the Django REST Framework. It is accessible at http://jaspar.genereg.net/api/ and the source code is freely available at https://bitbucket.org/CBGR/jaspar under GPL v3 license. aziz.khan@ncmm.uio.no or anthony.mathelier@ncmm.uio.no. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Galen: a third generation terminology tool to support a multipurpose national coding system for surgical procedures.

PubMed

Trombert-Paviot, B; Rodrigues, J M; Rogers, J E; Baud, R; van der Haring, E; Rassinoux, A M; Abrial, V; Clavel, L; Idir, H

1999-01-01

GALEN has developed a new generation of terminology tools based on a language independent concept reference model using a compositional formalism allowing computer processing and multiple reuses. During the 4th framework program project Galen-In-Use we applied the modelling and the tools to the development of a new multipurpose coding system for surgical procedures (CCAM) in France. On one hand we contributed to a language independent knowledge repository for multicultural Europe. On the other hand we support the traditional process for creating a new coding system in medicine which is very much labour consuming by artificial intelligence tools using a medically oriented recursive ontology and natural language processing. We used an integrated software named CLAW to process French professional medical language rubrics produced by the national colleges of surgeons into intermediate dissections and to the Grail reference ontology model representation. From this language independent concept model representation on one hand we generate controlled French natural language to support the finalization of the linguistic labels in relation with the meanings of the conceptual system structure. On the other hand the classification manager of third generation proves to be very powerful to retrieve the initial professional rubrics with different categories of concepts within a semantic network.

Computer Aided Management for Information Processing Projects.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Akman, Ibrahim; Kocamustafaogullari, Kemal

1995-01-01

Outlines the nature of information processing projects and discusses some project management programming packages. Describes an in-house interface program developed to utilize a selected project management package (TIMELINE) by using Oracle Data Base Management System tools and Pascal programming language for the management of information system…

Bellman's GAP--a language and compiler for dynamic programming in sequence analysis.

PubMed

Sauthoff, Georg; Möhl, Mathias; Janssen, Stefan; Giegerich, Robert

2013-03-01

Dynamic programming is ubiquitous in bioinformatics. Developing and implementing non-trivial dynamic programming algorithms is often error prone and tedious. Bellman's GAP is a new programming system, designed to ease the development of bioinformatics tools based on the dynamic programming technique. In Bellman's GAP, dynamic programming algorithms are described in a declarative style by tree grammars, evaluation algebras and products formed thereof. This bypasses the design of explicit dynamic programming recurrences and yields programs that are free of subscript errors, modular and easy to modify. The declarative modules are compiled into C++ code that is competitive to carefully hand-crafted implementations. This article introduces the Bellman's GAP system and its language, GAP-L. It then demonstrates the ease of development and the degree of re-use by creating variants of two common bioinformatics algorithms. Finally, it evaluates Bellman's GAP as an implementation platform of 'real-world' bioinformatics tools. Bellman's GAP is available under GPL license from http://bibiserv.cebitec.uni-bielefeld.de/bellmansgap. This Web site includes a repository of re-usable modules for RNA folding based on thermodynamics.

Adaptation of a Control Center Development Environment for Industrial Process Control

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Killough, Ronnie L.; Malik, James M.

1994-01-01

In the control center, raw telemetry data is received for storage, display, and analysis. This raw data must be combined and manipulated in various ways by mathematical computations to facilitate analysis, provide diversified fault detection mechanisms, and enhance display readability. A development tool called the Graphical Computation Builder (GCB) has been implemented which provides flight controllers with the capability to implement computations for use in the control center. The GCB provides a language that contains both general programming constructs and language elements specifically tailored for the control center environment. The GCB concept allows staff who are not skilled in computer programming to author and maintain computer programs. The GCB user is isolated from the details of external subsystem interfaces and has access to high-level functions such as matrix operators, trigonometric functions, and unit conversion macros. The GCB provides a high level of feedback during computation development that improves upon the often cryptic errors produced by computer language compilers. An equivalent need can be identified in the industrial data acquisition and process control domain: that of an integrated graphical development tool tailored to the application to hide the operating system, computer language, and data acquisition interface details. The GCB features a modular design which makes it suitable for technology transfer without significant rework. Control center-specific language elements can be replaced by elements specific to industrial process control.

Using Functional Languages and Declarative Programming to analyze ROOT data: LINQtoROOT

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Watts, Gordon

2015-05-01

Modern high energy physics analysis is complex. It typically requires multiple passes over different datasets, and is often held together with a series of scripts and programs. For example, one has to first reweight the jet energy spectrum in Monte Carlo to match data before plots of any other jet related variable can be made. This requires a pass over the Monte Carlo and the Data to derive the reweighting, and then another pass over the Monte Carlo to plot the variables the analyser is really interested in. With most modern ROOT based tools this requires separate analysis loops for each pass, and script files to glue to the results of the two analysis loops together. A framework has been developed that uses the functional and declarative features of the C# language and its Language Integrated Query (LINQ) extensions to declare the analysis. The framework uses language tools to convert the analysis into C++ and runs ROOT or PROOF as a backend to get the results. This gives the analyser the full power of an object-oriented programming language to put together the analysis and at the same time the speed of C++ for the analysis loop. The tool allows one to incorporate C++ algorithms written for ROOT by others. A by-product of the design is the ability to cache results between runs, dramatically reducing the cost of adding one-more-plot and also to keep a complete record associated with each plot for data preservation reasons. The code is mature enough to have been used in ATLAS analyses. The package is open source and available on the open source site CodePlex.

Porting a Mental Expert System to a Mainstream Programming Environment

PubMed Central

Jao, Chiang S.; Hier, Daniel B.; Dollear, Winifred; Fu, Wenying

2001-01-01

Expert systems are increasingly being applied to problems in medical diagnosis and treatment. Initial medical expert systems were programmed in specialized “expert system” shell programming environments. As the power of mainstream programming languages has increased, it has become possible to implement medical expert systems within these mainstream languages. We originally implemented an expert system to record and score the mental status examination utilizing a specialized expert system programming environment. We have now ported that application to a mainstream programming environment without losing any functionality of an accurate and comprehensive diagnostic tool. New system supplements the need of normative consultation report and offline reference library to the traditional patient care system.

Phonetic Training in the Foreign Language Curriculum

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Burnham, Kevin R.

2014-01-01

In this experiment we evaluate phonetic training as a tool for language learning. Specifically, we take a group of native speakers (NS) of English (n=24) currently enrolled in Arabic classes at American universities, and evaluate the effectiveness of a high variability phonetic training program (HVPT) to improve their perception of a difficult…

Phonetic Training in the Foreign Language Curriculum

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Burnham, Kevin R.

2014-01-01

In this experiment we evaluate phonetic training as a tool for language learning. Specifically, we take a group of native speakers (NS) of English (n = 24) currently enrolled in Arabic classes at American universities, and evaluate the effectiveness of a high variability phonetic training program (HVPT) to improve their perception of a difficult…

ESL Technologies: The Universal Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Waters, John K.

2007-01-01

The number of immigrant students in US schools has more than doubled in the past 15 years. In response, teachers are broadening their ESL programs with the one tool that translates in all dialects--computer technology. Students who are learning English for the first time, better known as English language learners (ELL), make up a greater…

Online Language Teaching: Teacher Perceptions of Effective Communication Tools, Required Skills and Challenges of Online Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

De Paepe, Liesbeth; Zhu, Chang; Depryck, Koen

2018-01-01

To date, teacher perceptions of online language teaching have attracted very little attention. However, these perceptions may influence decisions regarding instructional design, teaching practices and eventually the learning experience. Furthermore, teacher perceptions can contribute to the design of teacher training programs. This study provides…

Software development without languages

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Osborne, Haywood S.

1988-01-01

Automatic programming generally involves the construction of a formal specification; i.e., one which allows unambiguous interpretation by tools for the subsequent production of the corresponding software. Previous practical efforts in this direction have focused on the serious problems of: (1) designing the optimum specification language; and (2) mapping (translating or compiling) from this specification language to the program itself. The approach proposed bypasses the above problems. It postulates that the specification proper should be an intermediate form, with the sole function of containing information sufficient to facilitate construction of programs and also of matching documentation. Thus, the means of forming the intermediary becomes a human factors task rather than a linguistic one; human users will read documents generated from the specification, rather than the specification itself.

A remote sensing computer-assisted learning tool developed using the unified modeling language

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Friedrich, J.; Karslioglu, M. O.

The goal of this work has been to create an easy-to-use and simple-to-make learning tool for remote sensing at an introductory level. Many students struggle to comprehend what seems to be a very basic knowledge of digital images, image processing and image arithmetic, for example. Because professional programs are generally too complex and overwhelming for beginners and often not tailored to the specific needs of a course regarding functionality, a computer-assisted learning (CAL) program was developed based on the unified modeling language (UML), the present standard for object-oriented (OO) system development. A major advantage of this approach is an easier transition from modeling to coding of such an application, if modern UML tools are being used. After introducing the constructed UML model, its implementation is briefly described followed by a series of learning exercises. They illustrate how the resulting CAL tool supports students taking an introductory course in remote sensing at the author's institution.

ASTEC and MODEL: Controls software development at Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Downing, John P.; Bauer, Frank H.; Surber, Jeffrey L.

1993-01-01

The ASTEC (Analysis and Simulation Tools for Engineering Controls) software is under development at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). The design goal is to provide a wide selection of controls analysis tools at the personal computer level, as well as the capability to upload compute-intensive jobs to a mainframe or supercomputer. In the last three years the ASTEC (Analysis and Simulation Tools for Engineering Controls) software has been under development. ASTEC is meant to be an integrated collection of controls analysis tools for use at the desktop level. MODEL (Multi-Optimal Differential Equation Language) is a translator that converts programs written in the MODEL language to FORTRAN. An upgraded version of the MODEL program will be merged into ASTEC. MODEL has not been modified since 1981 and has not kept with changes in computers or user interface techniques. This paper describes the changes made to MODEL in order to make it useful in the 90's and how it relates to ASTEC.

Caesy: A software tool for computer-aided engineering

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wette, Matt

1993-01-01

A new software tool, Caesy, is described. This tool provides a strongly typed programming environment for research in the development of algorithms and software for computer-aided control system design. A description of the user language and its implementation as they currently stand are presented along with a description of work in progress and areas of future work.

Scratch as a Computational Modelling Tool for Teaching Physics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lopez, Victor; Hernandez, Maria Isabel

2015-01-01

The Scratch online authoring tool, which features a simple programming language that has been adapted to primary and secondary students, is being used more and more in schools as it offers students and teachers the opportunity to use a tool to build scientific models and evaluate their behaviour, just as can be done with computational modelling…

Second language learning in a family nurse practitioner and nurse midwifery diversity education project.

PubMed

Kelley, Frances J; Klopf, Maria Ignacia

2008-10-01

To describe the Clinical Communication Program developed to integrate second language learning (L2), multimedia, Web-based technologies, and the Internet in an advanced practice nursing education program. Electronic recording devices as well as audio, video editing, Web design, and programming software were used as tools for developing L2 scenarios for practice in clinical settings. The Clinical Communication Program offers opportunities to support both students and faculty members to develop their linguistic and cultural competence skills to serve better their patients, in general, and their students who speak a language other than English, in particular. The program provided 24 h on-demand access for using audio, video, and text exercises via the Internet. L2 education for healthcare providers includes linguistic (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) experiences as well as cultural competence and practices inside and outside the classroom environment as well as online and offline the Internet realm.

C-Language Integrated Production System, Version 6.0

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Riley, Gary; Donnell, Brian; Ly, Huyen-Anh Bebe; Ortiz, Chris

1995-01-01

C Language Integrated Production System (CLIPS) computer programs are specifically intended to model human expertise or other knowledge. CLIPS is designed to enable research on, and development and delivery of, artificial intelligence on conventional computers. CLIPS 6.0 provides cohesive software tool for handling wide variety of knowledge with support for three different programming paradigms: rule-based, object-oriented, and procedural. Rule-based programming: representation of knowledge as heuristics - essentially, rules of thumb that specify set of actions performed in given situation. Object-oriented programming: modeling of complex systems comprised of modular components easily reused to model other systems or create new components. Procedural-programming: representation of knowledge in ways similar to those of such languages as C, Pascal, Ada, and LISP. Version of CLIPS 6.0 for IBM PC-compatible computers requires DOS v3.3 or later and/or Windows 3.1 or later.

Language-Agnostic Reproducible Data Analysis Using Literate Programming.

PubMed

Vassilev, Boris; Louhimo, Riku; Ikonen, Elina; Hautaniemi, Sampsa

2016-01-01

A modern biomedical research project can easily contain hundreds of analysis steps and lack of reproducibility of the analyses has been recognized as a severe issue. While thorough documentation enables reproducibility, the number of analysis programs used can be so large that in reality reproducibility cannot be easily achieved. Literate programming is an approach to present computer programs to human readers. The code is rearranged to follow the logic of the program, and to explain that logic in a natural language. The code executed by the computer is extracted from the literate source code. As such, literate programming is an ideal formalism for systematizing analysis steps in biomedical research. We have developed the reproducible computing tool Lir (literate, reproducible computing) that allows a tool-agnostic approach to biomedical data analysis. We demonstrate the utility of Lir by applying it to a case study. Our aim was to investigate the role of endosomal trafficking regulators to the progression of breast cancer. In this analysis, a variety of tools were combined to interpret the available data: a relational database, standard command-line tools, and a statistical computing environment. The analysis revealed that the lipid transport related genes LAPTM4B and NDRG1 are coamplified in breast cancer patients, and identified genes potentially cooperating with LAPTM4B in breast cancer progression. Our case study demonstrates that with Lir, an array of tools can be combined in the same data analysis to improve efficiency, reproducibility, and ease of understanding. Lir is an open-source software available at github.com/borisvassilev/lir.

Language-Agnostic Reproducible Data Analysis Using Literate Programming

PubMed Central

Vassilev, Boris; Louhimo, Riku; Ikonen, Elina; Hautaniemi, Sampsa

2016-01-01

A modern biomedical research project can easily contain hundreds of analysis steps and lack of reproducibility of the analyses has been recognized as a severe issue. While thorough documentation enables reproducibility, the number of analysis programs used can be so large that in reality reproducibility cannot be easily achieved. Literate programming is an approach to present computer programs to human readers. The code is rearranged to follow the logic of the program, and to explain that logic in a natural language. The code executed by the computer is extracted from the literate source code. As such, literate programming is an ideal formalism for systematizing analysis steps in biomedical research. We have developed the reproducible computing tool Lir (literate, reproducible computing) that allows a tool-agnostic approach to biomedical data analysis. We demonstrate the utility of Lir by applying it to a case study. Our aim was to investigate the role of endosomal trafficking regulators to the progression of breast cancer. In this analysis, a variety of tools were combined to interpret the available data: a relational database, standard command-line tools, and a statistical computing environment. The analysis revealed that the lipid transport related genes LAPTM4B and NDRG1 are coamplified in breast cancer patients, and identified genes potentially cooperating with LAPTM4B in breast cancer progression. Our case study demonstrates that with Lir, an array of tools can be combined in the same data analysis to improve efficiency, reproducibility, and ease of understanding. Lir is an open-source software available at github.com/borisvassilev/lir. PMID:27711123

Active Participation of Integrated Development Environments in the Teaching of Object-Oriented Programming

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Depradine, Colin; Gay, Glenda

2004-01-01

With the strong link between programming and the underlying technology, the incorporation of computer technology into the teaching of a programming language course should be a natural progression. However, the abstract nature of programming can make such integration a difficult prospect to achieve. As a result, the main development tool, the…

The Ensembl REST API: Ensembl Data for Any Language.

PubMed

Yates, Andrew; Beal, Kathryn; Keenan, Stephen; McLaren, William; Pignatelli, Miguel; Ritchie, Graham R S; Ruffier, Magali; Taylor, Kieron; Vullo, Alessandro; Flicek, Paul

2015-01-01

We present a Web service to access Ensembl data using Representational State Transfer (REST). The Ensembl REST server enables the easy retrieval of a wide range of Ensembl data by most programming languages, using standard formats such as JSON and FASTA while minimizing client work. We also introduce bindings to the popular Ensembl Variant Effect Predictor tool permitting large-scale programmatic variant analysis independent of any specific programming language. The Ensembl REST API can be accessed at http://rest.ensembl.org and source code is freely available under an Apache 2.0 license from http://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl-rest. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press.

Learning with a missing sense: what can we learn from the interaction of a deaf child with a turtle?

PubMed

Miller, Paul

2009-01-01

This case study reports on the progress of Navon, a 13-year-old boy with prelingual deafness, over a 3-month period following exposure to Logo, a computer programming language that visualizes specific programming commands by means of a virtual drawing tool called the Turtle. Despite an almost complete lack of skills in spoken and sign language, Navon made impressive progress in his programming skills, including acquisition of a notable active written vocabulary, which he learned to apply in a purposeful, rule-based manner. His achievements are discussed with reference to commonly held assumptions about the relationship between language and thought, in general, and the prerequisite of proper spoken language skills for the acquisition of reading and writing, in particular. Highlighted are the central principles responsible for Navon's unexpected cognitive and linguistic development, including the way it affected his social relations with peers and teachers.

DI: An interactive debugging interpreter for applicative languages

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Skedzielewski, S.K.; Yates, R.K.; Oldehoeft, R.R.

1987-03-12

The DI interpreter is both a debugger and interpreter of SISLAL programs. Its use as a program interpreter is only a small part of its role; it is designed to be a tool for studying compilation techniques for applicative languages. DI interprets dataflow graphs expressed in the IF1 and IF2 languages, and is heavily instrumented to report the activity of dynamic storage activity, reference counting, copying and updating of structured data values. It also aids the SISAL language evaluation by providing an interim execution vehicle for SISAL programs. DI provides determinate, sequential interpretation of graph nodes for sequential and parallelmore » operations in a canonical order. As a debugging aid, DI allows tracing, breakpointing, and interactive display of program data values. DI handles creation of SISAL and IF1 error values for each data type and propagates them according to a well-defined algebra. We have begun to implement IF1 optimizers and have measured the improvements with DI.« less

GALEN: a third generation terminology tool to support a multipurpose national coding system for surgical procedures.

PubMed

Trombert-Paviot, B; Rodrigues, J M; Rogers, J E; Baud, R; van der Haring, E; Rassinoux, A M; Abrial, V; Clavel, L; Idir, H

2000-09-01

Generalised architecture for languages, encyclopedia and nomenclatures in medicine (GALEN) has developed a new generation of terminology tools based on a language independent model describing the semantics and allowing computer processing and multiple reuses as well as natural language understanding systems applications to facilitate the sharing and maintaining of consistent medical knowledge. During the European Union 4 Th. framework program project GALEN-IN-USE and later on within two contracts with the national health authorities we applied the modelling and the tools to the development of a new multipurpose coding system for surgical procedures named CCAM in a minority language country, France. On one hand, we contributed to a language independent knowledge repository and multilingual semantic dictionaries for multicultural Europe. On the other hand, we support the traditional process for creating a new coding system in medicine which is very much labour consuming by artificial intelligence tools using a medically oriented recursive ontology and natural language processing. We used an integrated software named CLAW (for classification workbench) to process French professional medical language rubrics produced by the national colleges of surgeons domain experts into intermediate dissections and to the Grail reference ontology model representation. From this language independent concept model representation, on one hand, we generate with the LNAT natural language generator controlled French natural language to support the finalization of the linguistic labels (first generation) in relation with the meanings of the conceptual system structure. On the other hand, the Claw classification manager proves to be very powerful to retrieve the initial domain experts rubrics list with different categories of concepts (second generation) within a semantic structured representation (third generation) bridge to the electronic patient record detailed terminology.

An evaluation of the documented requirements of the SSP UIL and a review of commercial software packages for the development and testing of UIL prototypes

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gill, Esther Naomi

1986-01-01

A review was conducted of software packages currently on the market which might be integrated with the interface language and aid in reaching the objectives of customization, standardization, transparency, reliability, maintainability, language substitutions, expandability, portability, and flexibility. Recommendations are given for best choices in hardware and software acquisition for inhouse testing of these possible integrations. Software acquisition in the line of tools to aid expert-system development and/or novice program development, artificial intelligent voice technology and touch screen or joystick or mouse utilization as well as networking were recommended. Other recommendations concerned using the language Ada for the user interface language shell because of its high level of standardization, structure, and ability to accept and execute programs written in other programming languages, its DOD ownership and control, and keeping the user interface language simple so that multiples of users will find the commercialization of space within their realm of possibility which is, after all, the purpose of the Space Station.

The Use of a Computer-Based Writing Program: Facilitation or Frustration?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Chi-Fen Emily; Cheng, Wei-Yuan

2006-01-01

The invention of computer-based writing program has revolutionized the way of teaching second language writing. Embedded with artificial intelligence scoring engine, it can provide students with both immediate score and diagnostic feedback on their essays. In addition, some of such programs offer convenient writing and editing tools to facilitate…

Developing Computer Programming Concepts and Skills via Technology-Enriched Language-Art Projects: A Case Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Young-Jin

2010-01-01

Teaching computer programming to young children has been considered difficult because of its abstract and complex nature. The objectives of this study are (1) to investigate whether an innovative educational technology tool called Scratch could enable young children to learn abstract knowledge of computer programming while creating multimedia…

Teaching Language Arts in Second Life

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Li-Ling

2011-01-01

Educators have been paying attention to the teaching potential of the 3D virtual world browsing program Second Life, and they have been using the tool to teach subjects such as arts and mathematics in the past few years. In this article, the author focuses on how to teach language arts in Second Life. Advantages and disadvantages of two Second…

Folklore for Teachers: Deutsche Volkskunde im Sprachunterricht (German Folklore in Language Instruction).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weber, Berta N.

1971-01-01

Cultural study provides an invaluable tool for the motivation and enrichment of work in the language classroom. The teacher of German, having decided to embark on a culture study program, must not, however, make the mistake of concentrating on the past, nor of letting current political boundaries restrict his approach; rather, he will find that…

Reframe, Rename, Revitalise: Future Directions for the Language, Literacy and Numeracy National Reporting System

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Perkins, Kate

2005-01-01

The National Reporting System (NRS) was developed to report the outcomes of English language, literacy and numeracy provision in Australia's vocational education and training and adult and community education sectors, and in labour market programs. Since its introduction, however, the NRS has been used as more than a reporting tool. It has also…

An Information-Systems Program for the Language Sciences. Final Report on Survey-and-Analysis Stage, 1967-1968.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Freeman, Robert R.; And Others

The main results of the survey-and-analysis stage include a substantial collection of preliminary data on the language-sciences information user community, its professional specialties and information channels, its indexing tools, and its terminologies. The prospects and techniques for the development of a modern, discipline-based information…

Diaries as a Reflective Tool in Pre-Service Language Teacher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kömür, Sevki; Çepik, Hazal

2015-01-01

This study presents and analyzes the positive and negative reflections of ten pre-service English teachers who kept diaries on their own learning and teaching processes and daily lives. The participants were students in an English Language Teacher Education Program who took an on-campus methodology course and voluntarily agreed to keep diaries.…

Simulation environment and graphical visualization environment: a COPD use-case

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background Today, many different tools are developed to execute and visualize physiological models that represent the human physiology. Most of these tools run models written in very specific programming languages which in turn simplify the communication among models. Nevertheless, not all of these tools are able to run models written in different programming languages. In addition, interoperability between such models remains an unresolved issue. Results In this paper we present a simulation environment that allows, first, the execution of models developed in different programming languages and second the communication of parameters to interconnect these models. This simulation environment, developed within the Synergy-COPD project, aims at helping and supporting bio-researchers and medical students understand the internal mechanisms of the human body through the use of physiological models. This tool is composed of a graphical visualization environment, which is a web interface through which the user can interact with the models, and a simulation workflow management system composed of a control module and a data warehouse manager. The control module monitors the correct functioning of the whole system. The data warehouse manager is responsible for managing the stored information and supporting its flow among the different modules. This simulation environment has been validated with the integration of three models: two deterministic, i.e. based on linear and differential equations, and one probabilistic, i.e., based on probability theory. These models have been selected based on the disease under study in this project, i.e., chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Conclusion It has been proved that the simulation environment presented here allows the user to research and study the internal mechanisms of the human physiology by the use of models via a graphical visualization environment. A new tool for bio-researchers is ready for deployment in various use cases scenarios. PMID:25471327

Automating software design system DESTA

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lovitsky, Vladimir A.; Pearce, Patricia D.

1992-01-01

'DESTA' is the acronym for the Dialogue Evolutionary Synthesizer of Turnkey Algorithms by means of a natural language (Russian or English) functional specification of algorithms or software being developed. DESTA represents the computer-aided and/or automatic artificial intelligence 'forgiving' system which provides users with software tools support for algorithm and/or structured program development. The DESTA system is intended to provide support for the higher levels and earlier stages of engineering design of software in contrast to conventional Computer Aided Design (CAD) systems which provide low level tools for use at a stage when the major planning and structuring decisions have already been taken. DESTA is a knowledge-intensive system. The main features of the knowledge are procedures, functions, modules, operating system commands, batch files, their natural language specifications, and their interlinks. The specific domain for the DESTA system is a high level programming language like Turbo Pascal 6.0. The DESTA system is operational and runs on an IBM PC computer.

Software engineering and Ada in design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Oneill, Don

1986-01-01

Modern software engineering promises significant reductions in software costs and improvements in software quality. The Ada language is the focus for these software methodology and tool improvements. The IBM FSD approach, including the software engineering practices that guide the systematic design and development of software products and the management of the software process are examined. The revised Ada design language adaptation is revealed. This four level design methodology is detailed including the purpose of each level, the management strategy that integrates the software design activity with the program milestones, and the technical strategy that maps the Ada constructs to each level of design. A complete description of each design level is provided along with specific design language recording guidelines for each level. Finally, some testimony is offered on education, tools, architecture, and metrics resulting from project use of the four level Ada design language adaptation.

Improving Thai Students' Understanding of Concepts in Protein Purification by Using Thai and English Versions of a Simulation Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Phornphisutthimas, Somkiat; Panijpan, Bhinyo; Wood, Edward J.; Booth, Andrew G.

2007-01-01

To support student learning in biochemistry and related courses, a simulation program, the Protein Purification Program, offers an alternative multimedia-based tool. This program has now been translated to produce a Thai version. However, translation from the original into the Thai language is limited by the differences between the language…

Programming your way out of the past: ISIS and the META Project

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Birman, Kenneth P.; Marzullo, Keith

1989-01-01

The ISIS distributed programming system and the META Project are described. The ISIS programming toolkit is an aid to low-level programming that makes it easy to build fault-tolerant distributed applications that exploit replication and concurrent execution. The META Project is reexamining high-level mechanisms such as the filesystem, shell language, and administration tools in distributed systems.

Raster Metafile And Raster Metafile Translator Programs

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Randall, Donald P.; Gates, Raymond L.; Skeens, Kristi M.

1994-01-01

Raster Metafile (RM) computer program is generic raster-image-format program, and Raster Metafile Translator (RMT) program is assortment of software tools for processing images prepared in this format. Processing includes reading, writing, and displaying RM images. Such other image-manipulation features as minimal compositing operator and resizing option available under RMT command structure. RMT written in FORTRAN 77 and C language.

Representing nursing guideline with unified modeling language to facilitate development of a computer system: a case study.

PubMed

Choi, Jeeyae; Choi, Jeungok E

2014-01-01

To provide best recommendations at the point of care, guidelines have been implemented in computer systems. As a prerequisite, guidelines are translated into a computer-interpretable guideline format. Since there are no specific tools to translate nursing guidelines, only a few nursing guidelines are translated and implemented in computer systems. Unified modeling language (UML) is a software writing language and is known to well and accurately represent end-users' perspective, due to the expressive characteristics of the UML. In order to facilitate the development of computer systems for nurses' use, the UML was used to translate a paper-based nursing guideline, and its ease of use and the usefulness were tested through a case study of a genetic counseling guideline. The UML was found to be a useful tool to nurse informaticians and a sufficient tool to model a guideline in a computer program.

Test-driven programming

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Georgiev, Bozhidar; Georgieva, Adriana

2013-12-01

In this paper, are presented some possibilities concerning the implementation of a test-driven development as a programming method. Here is offered a different point of view for creation of advanced programming techniques (build tests before programming source with all necessary software tools and modules respectively). Therefore, this nontraditional approach for easier programmer's work through building tests at first is preferable way of software development. This approach allows comparatively simple programming (applied with different object-oriented programming languages as for example JAVA, XML, PYTHON etc.). It is predictable way to develop software tools and to provide help about creating better software that is also easier to maintain. Test-driven programming is able to replace more complicated casual paradigms, used by many programmers.

Introduction to Classroom Sprego

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Csernoch, Mária; Biró, Piroska

2016-01-01

Sprego is programming with spreadsheet functions. The present paper provides introductory Sprego examples which have so far only been available in Hungarian. Spreadsheet environments offer both a programming tool which best serves beginner and end-user programmers' interest, and an approach which lightens the burden of coding and language details.…

Student Perceptions of Instructional Tools in Programming Logic: A Comparison of Traditional versus Alice Teaching Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schultz, Leah

2011-01-01

This research investigates the implementation of the programming language Alice to teach computer programming logic to computer information systems students. Alice has been implemented in other university settings and has been reported to have many benefits including object-oriented concepts and an engaging and fun learning environment. In this…

Programming Education with a Blocks-Based Visual Language for Mobile Application Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mihci, Can; Ozdener, Nesrin

2014-01-01

The aim of this study is to assess the impact upon academic success of the use of a reference block-based visual programming tool, namely the MIT App Inventor for Android, as an educational instrument for teaching object-oriented GUI-application development (CS2) concepts to students; who have previously completed a fundamental programming course…

Online learning tools in an M.Ed. in Earth Sciences program

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Richardson, E.

2011-12-01

Penn State's Master of Education in Earth Sciences program is a fully online 30-credit degree program serving mid-career secondary science teachers. Teachers in the program have a diverse background in science and math, are usually many years removed from their most recent degree, and are often deficient in the same geoscience skills as are beginning undergraduates. For example, they habitually assign incorrect causal relationships to concepts that are taught at the same time (such as sea-floor spreading and magnetic field reversals), and they have trouble with both object and spatial visualization. Program faculty also observe anecdotally that many teachers enter the program lacking the ability to describe their mental model of a given Earth science process, making it difficult to identify teachers' knowledge gaps. We have implemented many technical strategies to enhance program content delivery while trying to minimize the inherent barriers to completing quantitative assignments online and at a distance. These barriers include competence with and access to sophisticated data analysis and plotting programs commonly used by scientists. Here, I demonstrate two technical tools I use frequently to strengthen online content delivery and assessment. The first, Jing, is commercially-available, free, and platform-independent. Jing allows the user to make screencasts with narration and embed them into a web page as a flash movie or as an external link. The second is a set of simple sketching tools I have created using the programming language Processing, which is a free, open source, platform-independent language built on Java. The integration of easy-to-use drawing tools into problem sets and other assessments has enabled faculty to appraise a learner's grasp of the material without the steep technical learning curve and expense inherent in most computer graphics packages. A serendipitous benefit of teaching with these tools is that they are easy to learn and freely available and so the teachers in the program learn to use them, too. Qualitative assessment of feedback from the teachers in the program shows that they find the explanations, screencasts, animations, and discussions arising from these tools not only enhance their own learning but also inspire them to try them in their classrooms.

GIS tool to locate major Sikh temples in USA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sharma, Saumya

This tool is a GIS based interactive and graphical user interface tool, which locates the major Sikh temples of USA on a map. This tool is using Java programming language along with MOJO (Map Object Java Object) provided by ESRI that is the organization that provides the GIS software. It also includes some of the integration with Google's API's like Google Translator API. This application will tell users about the origin of Sikhism in India and USA, the major Sikh temples in each state of USA, location, name and detail information through their website. The primary purpose of this application is to make people aware about this religion and culture. This tool will also measure the distance between two temple points in a map and display the result in miles and kilometers. Also, there is an added support to convert each temple's website language from English to Punjabi or any other language using a language convertor tool so that people from different nationalities can understand their culture. By clicking on each point on a map, a new window will pop up showing the picture of the temple and a hyperlink that will redirect to the website of that particular temple .It will also contain links to their dance, music, history, and also a help menu to guide the users to use the software efficiently.

Computer Assisted Reading in German as a Foreign Language, Developing and Testing an NLP-Based Application

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wood, Peter

2011-01-01

"QuickAssist," the program presented in this paper, uses natural language processing (NLP) technologies. It places a range of NLP tools at the disposal of learners, intended to enable them to independently read and comprehend a German text of their choice while they extend their vocabulary, learn about different uses of particular words,…

The Current Practice of Integration of Information Communication Technology to English Teaching and the Emotions Involved in Blended Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Mei-jung

2014-01-01

The effective and confident integration of information communication technology (ICT) tools and programs can be frustrating. Hence, providing emotional support for teachers who are willing to adopt ICT in language instruction is an issue worthy of attention. In order to promote ICT-supported language instruction, this study aims to identify the…

Exploring How Digital Media Technology Can Foster Saudi EFL Students' English Language Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Altawil, Abdulmohsin

2016-01-01

Digital media technology has become an integral part of daily life for almost all young students, and for the majority of Saudi EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students. Digital media technology may not be limited to one or two kinds; it has various types such as software and programs, devices, application, websites, social media tools, etc.…

Exploring the Possibility of Using Humanoid Robots as Instructional Tools for Teaching a Second Language in Primary School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chang, Chih-Wei; Lee, Jih-Hsien; Chao, Po-Yao; Wang, Chin-Yeh; Chen, Gwo-Dong

2010-01-01

As robot technologies develop, many researchers have tried to use robots to support education. Studies have shown that robots can help students develop problem-solving abilities and learn computer programming, mathematics, and science. However, few studies discuss the use of robots to facilitate the teaching of second languages. We discuss whether…

The Use of Authentic Assessment to Report Accountability Data on Young Children's Language, Literacy and Pre-Math Competency

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gao, Xin; Grisham-Brown, Jennifer

2011-01-01

This validity study examined the validity of Assessment, Evaluation, and Programming System, 2nd Edition (AEPS®), a curriculum-based, authentic assessment for infants and young children. The primary purposes were to: a) examine whether the AEPS® is a concurrently valid tool for measuring young children's language, literacy and pre-math skills for…

Digital Literacy Matters: Increasing Workforce Productivity through Blended English Language Programs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jose, Kshema

2016-01-01

Current workplace demands newer forms of literacies that go beyond the ability to decode print. These involve not only competence to operate digital tools, but also the ability to create, represent, and share meaning in different modes and formats; ability to interact, collaborate and communicate effectively using digital tools, and engage…

EFL Learners' Attitudes towards Using Computers as a Learning Tool in Language Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kitchakarn, Orachorn

2015-01-01

The study was conducted to investigate attitudes toward using computers as a learning tool among undergraduate students in a private university. In this regards, some variables which might be potential antecedents of attitudes toward computer including gender, experience of using computers and perceived abilities in using programs were examined.…

SURE reliability analysis: Program and mathematics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Butler, Ricky W.; White, Allan L.

1988-01-01

The SURE program is a new reliability analysis tool for ultrareliable computer system architectures. The computational methods on which the program is based provide an efficient means for computing accurate upper and lower bounds for the death state probabilities of a large class of semi-Markov models. Once a semi-Markov model is described using a simple input language, the SURE program automatically computes the upper and lower bounds on the probability of system failure. A parameter of the model can be specified as a variable over a range of values directing the SURE program to perform a sensitivity analysis automatically. This feature, along with the speed of the program, makes it especially useful as a design tool.

Toward a molecular programming language for algorithmic self-assembly

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Patitz, Matthew John

Self-assembly is the process whereby relatively simple components autonomously combine to form more complex objects. Nature exhibits self-assembly to form everything from microscopic crystals to living cells to galaxies. With a desire to both form increasingly sophisticated products and to understand the basic components of living systems, scientists have developed and studied artificial self-assembling systems. One such framework is the Tile Assembly Model introduced by Erik Winfree in 1998. In this model, simple two-dimensional square 'tiles' are designed so that they self-assemble into desired shapes. The work in this thesis consists of a series of results which build toward the future goal of designing an abstracted, high-level programming language for designing the molecular components of self-assembling systems which can perform powerful computations and form into intricate structures. The first two sets of results demonstrate self-assembling systems which perform infinite series of computations that characterize computably enumerable and decidable languages, and exhibit tools for algorithmically generating the necessary sets of tiles. In the next chapter, methods for generating tile sets which self-assemble into complicated shapes, namely a class of discrete self-similar fractal structures, are presented. Next, a software package for graphically designing tile sets, simulating their self-assembly, and debugging designed systems is discussed. Finally, a high-level programming language which abstracts much of the complexity and tedium of designing such systems, while preventing many of the common errors, is presented. The summation of this body of work presents a broad coverage of the spectrum of desired outputs from artificial self-assembling systems and a progression in the sophistication of tools used to design them. By creating a broader and deeper set of modular tools for designing self-assembling systems, we hope to increase the complexity which is attainable. These tools provide a solid foundation for future work in both the Tile Assembly Model and explorations into more advanced models.

Early Childhood Classrooms and Computers: Programs with Promise.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hoot, James L.; Kimler, Michele

Word processing and the LOGO programing language are two microcomputer applications that are beginning to show benefits as learning tools in elementary school classrooms. Word processing packages are especially useful with beginning writers, whose lack of motor coordination often slows down their acquisition of competence in written communication.…

Robots as Language Learning Tools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Collado, Ericka

2017-01-01

Robots are machines that resemble different forms, usually those of humans or animals, that can perform preprogrammed or autonomous tasks (Robot, n.d.). With the emergence of STEM programs, there has been a rise in the use of robots in educational settings. STEM programs are those where students study science, technology, engineering and…

Owlready: Ontology-oriented programming in Python with automatic classification and high level constructs for biomedical ontologies.

PubMed

Lamy, Jean-Baptiste

2017-07-01

Ontologies are widely used in the biomedical domain. While many tools exist for the edition, alignment or evaluation of ontologies, few solutions have been proposed for ontology programming interface, i.e. for accessing and modifying an ontology within a programming language. Existing query languages (such as SPARQL) and APIs (such as OWLAPI) are not as easy-to-use as object programming languages are. Moreover, they provide few solutions to difficulties encountered with biomedical ontologies. Our objective was to design a tool for accessing easily the entities of an OWL ontology, with high-level constructs helping with biomedical ontologies. From our experience on medical ontologies, we identified two difficulties: (1) many entities are represented by classes (rather than individuals), but the existing tools do not permit manipulating classes as easily as individuals, (2) ontologies rely on the open-world assumption, whereas the medical reasoning must consider only evidence-based medical knowledge as true. We designed a Python module for ontology-oriented programming. It allows access to the entities of an OWL ontology as if they were objects in the programming language. We propose a simple high-level syntax for managing classes and the associated "role-filler" constraints. We also propose an algorithm for performing local closed world reasoning in simple situations. We developed Owlready, a Python module for a high-level access to OWL ontologies. The paper describes the architecture and the syntax of the module version 2. It details how we integrated the OWL ontology model with the Python object model. The paper provides examples based on Gene Ontology (GO). We also demonstrate the interest of Owlready in a use case focused on the automatic comparison of the contraindications of several drugs. This use case illustrates the use of the specific syntax proposed for manipulating classes and for performing local closed world reasoning. Owlready has been successfully used in a medical research project. It has been published as Open-Source software and then used by many other researchers. Future developments will focus on the support of vagueness and additional non-monotonic reasoning feature, and automatic dialog box generation. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Myokit: A simple interface to cardiac cellular electrophysiology.

PubMed

Clerx, Michael; Collins, Pieter; de Lange, Enno; Volders, Paul G A

2016-01-01

Myokit is a new powerful and versatile software tool for modeling and simulation of cardiac cellular electrophysiology. Myokit consists of an easy-to-read modeling language, a graphical user interface, single and multi-cell simulation engines and a library of advanced analysis tools accessible through a Python interface. Models can be loaded from Myokit's native file format or imported from CellML. Model export is provided to C, MATLAB, CellML, CUDA and OpenCL. Patch-clamp data can be imported and used to estimate model parameters. In this paper, we review existing tools to simulate the cardiac cellular action potential to find that current tools do not cater specifically to model development and that there is a gap between easy-to-use but limited software and powerful tools that require strong programming skills from their users. We then describe Myokit's capabilities, focusing on its model description language, simulation engines and import/export facilities in detail. Using three examples, we show how Myokit can be used for clinically relevant investigations, multi-model testing and parameter estimation in Markov models, all with minimal programming effort from the user. This way, Myokit bridges a gap between performance, versatility and user-friendliness. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

BEASTling: A software tool for linguistic phylogenetics using BEAST 2

PubMed Central

Forkel, Robert; Kaiping, Gereon A.; Atkinson, Quentin D.

2017-01-01

We present a new open source software tool called BEASTling, designed to simplify the preparation of Bayesian phylogenetic analyses of linguistic data using the BEAST 2 platform. BEASTling transforms comparatively short and human-readable configuration files into the XML files used by BEAST to specify analyses. By taking advantage of Creative Commons-licensed data from the Glottolog language catalog, BEASTling allows the user to conveniently filter datasets using names for recognised language families, to impose monophyly constraints so that inferred language trees are backward compatible with Glottolog classifications, or to assign geographic location data to languages for phylogeographic analyses. Support for the emerging cross-linguistic linked data format (CLDF) permits easy incorporation of data published in cross-linguistic linked databases into analyses. BEASTling is intended to make the power of Bayesian analysis more accessible to historical linguists without strong programming backgrounds, in the hopes of encouraging communication and collaboration between those developing computational models of language evolution (who are typically not linguists) and relevant domain experts. PMID:28796784

BEASTling: A software tool for linguistic phylogenetics using BEAST 2.

PubMed

Maurits, Luke; Forkel, Robert; Kaiping, Gereon A; Atkinson, Quentin D

2017-01-01

We present a new open source software tool called BEASTling, designed to simplify the preparation of Bayesian phylogenetic analyses of linguistic data using the BEAST 2 platform. BEASTling transforms comparatively short and human-readable configuration files into the XML files used by BEAST to specify analyses. By taking advantage of Creative Commons-licensed data from the Glottolog language catalog, BEASTling allows the user to conveniently filter datasets using names for recognised language families, to impose monophyly constraints so that inferred language trees are backward compatible with Glottolog classifications, or to assign geographic location data to languages for phylogeographic analyses. Support for the emerging cross-linguistic linked data format (CLDF) permits easy incorporation of data published in cross-linguistic linked databases into analyses. BEASTling is intended to make the power of Bayesian analysis more accessible to historical linguists without strong programming backgrounds, in the hopes of encouraging communication and collaboration between those developing computational models of language evolution (who are typically not linguists) and relevant domain experts.

BOWS (bioinformatics open web services) to centralize bioinformatics tools in web services.

PubMed

Velloso, Henrique; Vialle, Ricardo A; Ortega, J Miguel

2015-06-02

Bioinformaticians face a range of difficulties to get locally-installed tools running and producing results; they would greatly benefit from a system that could centralize most of the tools, using an easy interface for input and output. Web services, due to their universal nature and widely known interface, constitute a very good option to achieve this goal. Bioinformatics open web services (BOWS) is a system based on generic web services produced to allow programmatic access to applications running on high-performance computing (HPC) clusters. BOWS intermediates the access to registered tools by providing front-end and back-end web services. Programmers can install applications in HPC clusters in any programming language and use the back-end service to check for new jobs and their parameters, and then to send the results to BOWS. Programs running in simple computers consume the BOWS front-end service to submit new processes and read results. BOWS compiles Java clients, which encapsulate the front-end web service requisitions, and automatically creates a web page that disposes the registered applications and clients. Bioinformatics open web services registered applications can be accessed from virtually any programming language through web services, or using standard java clients. The back-end can run in HPC clusters, allowing bioinformaticians to remotely run high-processing demand applications directly from their machines.

Next generation simulation tools: the Systems Biology Workbench and BioSPICE integration.

PubMed

Sauro, Herbert M; Hucka, Michael; Finney, Andrew; Wellock, Cameron; Bolouri, Hamid; Doyle, John; Kitano, Hiroaki

2003-01-01

Researchers in quantitative systems biology make use of a large number of different software packages for modelling, analysis, visualization, and general data manipulation. In this paper, we describe the Systems Biology Workbench (SBW), a software framework that allows heterogeneous application components--written in diverse programming languages and running on different platforms--to communicate and use each others' capabilities via a fast binary encoded-message system. Our goal was to create a simple, high performance, opensource software infrastructure which is easy to implement and understand. SBW enables applications (potentially running on separate, distributed computers) to communicate via a simple network protocol. The interfaces to the system are encapsulated in client-side libraries that we provide for different programming languages. We describe in this paper the SBW architecture, a selection of current modules, including Jarnac, JDesigner, and SBWMeta-tool, and the close integration of SBW into BioSPICE, which enables both frameworks to share tools and compliment and strengthen each others capabilities.

Natural language processing pipelines to annotate BioC collections with an application to the NCBI disease corpus

PubMed Central

Comeau, Donald C.; Liu, Haibin; Islamaj Doğan, Rezarta; Wilbur, W. John

2014-01-01

BioC is a new format and associated code libraries for sharing text and annotations. We have implemented BioC natural language preprocessing pipelines in two popular programming languages: C++ and Java. The current implementations interface with the well-known MedPost and Stanford natural language processing tool sets. The pipeline functionality includes sentence segmentation, tokenization, part-of-speech tagging, lemmatization and sentence parsing. These pipelines can be easily integrated along with other BioC programs into any BioC compliant text mining systems. As an application, we converted the NCBI disease corpus to BioC format, and the pipelines have successfully run on this corpus to demonstrate their functionality. Code and data can be downloaded from http://bioc.sourceforge.net. Database URL: http://bioc.sourceforge.net PMID:24935050

Building flexible real-time systems using the Flex language

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kenny, Kevin B.; Lin, Kwei-Jay

1991-01-01

The design and implementation of a real-time programming language called Flex, which is a derivative of C++, are presented. It is shown how different types of timing requirements might be expressed and enforced in Flex, how they might be fulfilled in a flexible way using different program models, and how the programming environment can help in making binding and scheduling decisions. The timing constraint primitives in Flex are easy to use yet powerful enough to define both independent and relative timing constraints. Program models like imprecise computation and performance polymorphism can carry out flexible real-time programs. In addition, programmers can use a performance measurement tool that produces statistically correct timing models to predict the expected execution time of a program and to help make binding decisions. A real-time programming environment is also presented.

Evaluation of Arabic Language Learning Program for Non-Native Speakers in Saudi Electronic University According to Total Quality Standards

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alowaydhi, Wafa Hafez

2016-01-01

The current study aimed at standardizing the program of learning Arabic for non-native speakers in Saudi Electronic University according to certain standards of total quality. To achieve its purpose, the study adopted the descriptive analytical method. The author prepared a measurement tool for evaluating the electronic learning programs in light…

On the Development of a Programming Teaching Tool: The Effect of Teaching by Templates on the Learning Process

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Al-Imamy, Samer; Alizadeh, Javanshir; Nour, Mohamed A.

2006-01-01

One of the major issues related to teaching an introductory programming course is the excessive amount of time spent on the language's syntax, which leaves little time for developing skills in program design and solution creativity. The wide variation in the students' backgrounds, coupled with the traditional classroom (one size-fits-all) teaching…

Analysis-Based Verification: A Programmer-Oriented Approach to the Assurance of Mechanical Program Properties

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-05-27

programming language, threads can only communicate through fields and this assertion prohibits an alias to the object under construction from being writ- ten...1.9. We call this type of reporting “compiler-like” in the sense that the descriptive message output by the tool has to communicate the semantics of...way to communicate a “need” for further annotation to the tool user because a precise expression of both the location and content of the needed

Software For Computer-Security Audits

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Arndt, Kate; Lonsford, Emily

1994-01-01

Information relevant to potential breaches of security gathered efficiently. Automated Auditing Tools for VAX/VMS program includes following automated software tools performing noted tasks: Privileged ID Identification, program identifies users and their privileges to circumvent existing computer security measures; Critical File Protection, critical files not properly protected identified; Inactive ID Identification, identifications of users no longer in use found; Password Lifetime Review, maximum lifetimes of passwords of all identifications determined; and Password Length Review, minimum allowed length of passwords of all identifications determined. Written in DEC VAX DCL language.

The parser generator as a general purpose tool

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Noonan, R. E.; Collins, W. R.

1985-01-01

The parser generator has proven to be an extremely useful, general purpose tool. It can be used effectively by programmers having only a knowledge of grammars and no training at all in the theory of formal parsing. Some of the application areas for which a table-driven parser can be used include interactive, query languages, menu systems, translators, and programming support tools. Each of these is illustrated by an example grammar.

Technology in College Classrooms: An Action Research Examining the Use of Powerpoint in ELL Classrooms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhang, Weiwei

2012-01-01

This research looks at the use of PowerPoint as an instructional tool for teaching English language learners (ELL) who studied in a language program at a state university in the Pacific Northwest. The purpose of the research was to discover and to explore the perceptions of PowerPoint supported teaching and learning that were held by the students,…

Specification and Error Pattern Based Program Monitoring

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Havelund, Klaus; Johnson, Scott; Rosu, Grigore; Clancy, Daniel (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

We briefly present Java PathExplorer (JPAX), a tool developed at NASA Ames for monitoring the execution of Java programs. JPAX can be used not only during program testing to reveal subtle errors, but also can be applied during operation to survey safety critical systems. The tool facilitates automated instrumentation of a program in order to properly observe its execution. The instrumentation can be either at the bytecode level or at the source level when the source code is available. JPaX is an instance of a more general project, called PathExplorer (PAX), which is a basis for experiments rather than a fixed system, capable of monitoring various programming languages and experimenting with other logics and analysis techniques

Visualization and Interaction in Research, Teaching, and Scientific Communication

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ammon, C. J.

2017-12-01

Modern computing provides many tools for exploring observations, numerical calculations, and theoretical relationships. The number of options is, in fact, almost overwhelming. But the choices provide those with modest programming skills opportunities to create unique views of scientific information and to develop deeper insights into their data, their computations, and the underlying theoretical data-model relationships. I present simple examples of using animation and human-computer interaction to explore scientific data and scientific-analysis approaches. I illustrate how valuable a little programming ability can free scientists from the constraints of existing tools and can facilitate the development of deeper appreciation data and models. I present examples from a suite of programming languages ranging from C to JavaScript including the Wolfram Language. JavaScript is valuable for sharing tools and insight (hopefully) with others because it is integrated into one of the most powerful communication tools in human history, the web browser. Although too much of that power is often spent on distracting advertisements, the underlying computation and graphics engines are efficient, flexible, and almost universally available in desktop and mobile computing platforms. Many are working to fulfill the browser's potential to become the most effective tool for interactive study. Open-source frameworks for visualizing everything from algorithms to data are available, but advance rapidly. One strategy for dealing with swiftly changing tools is to adopt common, open data formats that are easily adapted (often by framework or tool developers). I illustrate the use of animation and interaction in research and teaching with examples from earthquake seismology.

System Specification for ADA Integrated Environment Type A AIE(1).

DTIC Science & Technology

1982-11-12

includes program library support tools and the linker. The program library is the means by which the AIE supports independent, modular program development...KAPSE TUOL COMMUNICATION Package KAPSE-KAPS ECOMMUNICATION (KAPSE.RTS) (Most of it, except the "Language-Defined Packages" CPC) The overall...including classification of errors by severity; 5. perform optimizations for timing and/or space, without changing the functional meaning of a program by the

Using Turnitin to Provide Feedback on L2 Writers' Texts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kostka, Ilka; Maliborska, Veronika

2016-01-01

Second language (L2) writing instructors have varying tools at their disposal for providing feedback on students' writing, including ones that enable them to provide written and audio feedback in electronic form. One tool that has been underexplored is Turnitin, a widely used software program that matches electronic text to a wide range of…

Systems Prototyping with Fourth Generation Tools: One Answer to the Productivity Puzzle? AIR 1983 Annual Forum Paper.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sholtys, Phyllis A.

The development of information systems using an engineering approach employing both traditional programming techniques and nonprocedural languages is described. A fourth generation application tool is used to develop a prototype system that is revised and expanded as the user clarifies individual requirements. When fully defined, a combination of…

Non-Native Chinese Language Learners' Attitudes towards Online Vision-Based Motion Games

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hao, Yungwei; Hong, Jon-Chao; Jong, Jyh-Tsorng; Hwang, Ming-Yueh; Su, Chao-Ya; Yang, Jin-Shin

2010-01-01

Learning to write Chinese characters is often thought to be a very challenging and laborious task. However, new learning tools are being designed that might reduce learners' tedium. This study explores one such tool, an online program in which learners can learn Chinese characters through vision-based motion games. The learner's gestures are…

Web-Based Course Delivery and Administration Using Scheme.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Salustri, Filippo A.

This paper discusses the use at the University of Windsor (Ontario) of a small World Wide Web-based tool for course delivery and administration called HAL (HTML-based Administrative Lackey), written in the Scheme programming language. This tool was developed by the author to provide Web-based services for a large first-year undergraduate course in…

Using Virtual Environments as Professional Development Tools for Pre-Service Teachers Seeking ESOL Endorsement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Blankenship, Rebecca J.

2010-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential use of Second Life (Linden Labs, 2004) and Skype (Skype Limited, 2009) as simulated virtual professional development tools for pre-service teachers seeking endorsement in teaching English as a Second Official Language (ESOL). Second Life is an avatar-based Internet program that allows…

Bellman’s GAP—a language and compiler for dynamic programming in sequence analysis

PubMed Central

Sauthoff, Georg; Möhl, Mathias; Janssen, Stefan; Giegerich, Robert

2013-01-01

Motivation: Dynamic programming is ubiquitous in bioinformatics. Developing and implementing non-trivial dynamic programming algorithms is often error prone and tedious. Bellman’s GAP is a new programming system, designed to ease the development of bioinformatics tools based on the dynamic programming technique. Results: In Bellman’s GAP, dynamic programming algorithms are described in a declarative style by tree grammars, evaluation algebras and products formed thereof. This bypasses the design of explicit dynamic programming recurrences and yields programs that are free of subscript errors, modular and easy to modify. The declarative modules are compiled into C++ code that is competitive to carefully hand-crafted implementations. This article introduces the Bellman’s GAP system and its language, GAP-L. It then demonstrates the ease of development and the degree of re-use by creating variants of two common bioinformatics algorithms. Finally, it evaluates Bellman’s GAP as an implementation platform of ‘real-world’ bioinformatics tools. Availability: Bellman’s GAP is available under GPL license from http://bibiserv.cebitec.uni-bielefeld.de/bellmansgap. This Web site includes a repository of re-usable modules for RNA folding based on thermodynamics. Contact: robert@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online PMID:23355290

THREAD: A programming environment for interactive planning-level robotics applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Beahan, John J., Jr.

1989-01-01

THREAD programming language, which was developed to meet the needs of researchers in developing robotics applications that perform such tasks as grasp, trajectory design, sensor data analysis, and interfacing with external subsystems in order to perform servo-level control of manipulators and real time sensing is discussed. The philosophy behind THREAD, the issues which entered into its design, and the features of the language are discussed from the viewpoint of researchers who want to develop algorithms in a simulation environment, and from those who want to implement physical robotics systems. The detailed functions of the many complex robotics algorithms and tools which are part of the language are not explained, but an overall impression of their capability is given.

The Ensembl REST API: Ensembl Data for Any Language

PubMed Central

Yates, Andrew; Beal, Kathryn; Keenan, Stephen; McLaren, William; Pignatelli, Miguel; Ritchie, Graham R. S.; Ruffier, Magali; Taylor, Kieron; Vullo, Alessandro; Flicek, Paul

2015-01-01

Motivation: We present a Web service to access Ensembl data using Representational State Transfer (REST). The Ensembl REST server enables the easy retrieval of a wide range of Ensembl data by most programming languages, using standard formats such as JSON and FASTA while minimizing client work. We also introduce bindings to the popular Ensembl Variant Effect Predictor tool permitting large-scale programmatic variant analysis independent of any specific programming language. Availability and implementation: The Ensembl REST API can be accessed at http://rest.ensembl.org and source code is freely available under an Apache 2.0 license from http://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl-rest. Contact: ayates@ebi.ac.uk or flicek@ebi.ac.uk Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. PMID:25236461

From OO to FPGA :

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kou, Stephen; Palsberg, Jens; Brooks, Jeffrey

Consumer electronics today such as cell phones often have one or more low-power FPGAs to assist with energy-intensive operations in order to reduce overall energy consumption and increase battery life. However, current techniques for programming FPGAs require people to be specially trained to do so. Ideally, software engineers can more readily take advantage of the benefits FPGAs offer by being able to program them using their existing skills, a common one being object-oriented programming. However, traditional techniques for compiling object-oriented languages are at odds with todays FPGA tools, which support neither pointers nor complex data structures. Open until now ismore » the problem of compiling an object-oriented language to an FPGA in a way that harnesses this potential for huge energy savings. In this paper, we present a new compilation technique that feeds into an existing FPGA tool chain and produces FPGAs with up to almost an order of magnitude in energy savings compared to a low-power microprocessor while still retaining comparable performance and area usage.« less

Techniques and implementation of the embedded rule-based expert system using Ada

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Liberman, Eugene M.; Jones, Robert E.

1991-01-01

Ada is becoming an increasingly popular programming language for large Government-funded software projects. Ada with its portability, transportability, and maintainability lends itself well to today's complex programming environment. In addition, expert systems have also assured a growing role in providing human-like reasoning capability and expertise for computer systems. The integration of expert system technology with Ada programming language, specifically a rule-based expert system using an ART-Ada (Automated Reasoning Tool for Ada) system shell is discussed. The NASA Lewis Research Center was chosen as a beta test site for ART-Ada. The test was conducted by implementing the existing Autonomous Power EXpert System (APEX), a Lisp-base power expert system, in ART-Ada. Three components, the rule-based expert system, a graphics user interface, and communications software make up SMART-Ada (Systems fault Management with ART-Ada). The main objective, to conduct a beta test on the ART-Ada rule-based expert system shell, was achieved. The system is operational. New Ada tools will assist in future successful projects. ART-Ada is one such tool and is a viable alternative to the straight Ada code when an application requires a rule-based or knowledge-based approach.

Hierarchical programming for data storage and visualization

USGS Publications Warehouse

Donovan, John M.; Smith, Peter E.; ,

2001-01-01

Graphics software is an essential tool for interpreting, analyzing, and presenting data from multidimensional hydrodynamic models used in estuarine and coastal ocean studies. The post-processing of time-varying three-dimensional model output presents unique requirements for data visualization because of the large volume of data that can be generated and the multitude of time scales that must be examined. Such data can relate to estuarine or coastal ocean environments and come from numerical models or field instruments. One useful software tool for the display, editing, visualization, and printing of graphical data is the Gr application, written by the first author for use in U.S. Geological Survey San Francisco Bay Program. The Gr application has been made available to the public via the Internet since the year 2000. The Gr application is written in the Java (Sun Microsystems, Nov. 29, 2001) programming language and uses the Extensible Markup Language standard for hierarchical data storage. Gr presents a hierarchy of objects to the user that can be edited using a common interface. Java's object-oriented capabilities allow Gr to treat data, graphics, and tools equally and to save them all to a single XML file.

Optimal Facility Location Tool for Logistics Battle Command (LBC)

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-08-01

64 Appendix B. VBA Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Appendix C. Story...should city planners have located emergency service facilities so that all households (the demand) had equal access to coverage?” The critical...programming language called Visual Basic for Applications ( VBA ). CPLEX is a commercial solver for linear, integer, and mixed integer linear programming problems

Mistaking Identities: Challenging Representations of Language, Gender, and Race in High Tech Television Programs.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Voithofer, R. J.

Television programs are increasingly featuring information technologies like computers as significant narrative devices, including the use of computer-based technologies as virtual worlds or environments in which characters interact, the use of computers as tools in problem solving and confronting conflict, and characters that are part human, part…

Microcomputers, Software and Foreign Languages for Special Purposes: An Analysis of TXTPRO.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tang, Michael S.

TXTPRO, a computer program developed as a graduate-level research tool for descriptive linguistic analysis, produces simple alphabetic and word frequency lists, analyzes word combinations, and develops concordances. With modifications, a teacher could enter the program into a mainframe or a microcomputer and use it for text analyses to develop…

A Conversion Tool for Mathematical Expressions in Web XML Files.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ohtake, Nobuyuki; Kanahori, Toshihiro

2003-01-01

This article discusses the conversion of mathematical equations into Extensible Markup Language (XML) on the World Wide Web for individuals with visual impairments. A program is described that converts the presentation markup style to the content markup style in MathML to allow browsers to render mathematical expressions without other programs.…

Programming biological models in Python using PySB.

PubMed

Lopez, Carlos F; Muhlich, Jeremy L; Bachman, John A; Sorger, Peter K

2013-01-01

Mathematical equations are fundamental to modeling biological networks, but as networks get large and revisions frequent, it becomes difficult to manage equations directly or to combine previously developed models. Multiple simultaneous efforts to create graphical standards, rule-based languages, and integrated software workbenches aim to simplify biological modeling but none fully meets the need for transparent, extensible, and reusable models. In this paper we describe PySB, an approach in which models are not only created using programs, they are programs. PySB draws on programmatic modeling concepts from little b and ProMot, the rule-based languages BioNetGen and Kappa and the growing library of Python numerical tools. Central to PySB is a library of macros encoding familiar biochemical actions such as binding, catalysis, and polymerization, making it possible to use a high-level, action-oriented vocabulary to construct detailed models. As Python programs, PySB models leverage tools and practices from the open-source software community, substantially advancing our ability to distribute and manage the work of testing biochemical hypotheses. We illustrate these ideas using new and previously published models of apoptosis.

Fuzzy Logic Engine

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Howard, Ayanna

2005-01-01

The Fuzzy Logic Engine is a software package that enables users to embed fuzzy-logic modules into their application programs. Fuzzy logic is useful as a means of formulating human expert knowledge and translating it into software to solve problems. Fuzzy logic provides flexibility for modeling relationships between input and output information and is distinguished by its robustness with respect to noise and variations in system parameters. In addition, linguistic fuzzy sets and conditional statements allow systems to make decisions based on imprecise and incomplete information. The user of the Fuzzy Logic Engine need not be an expert in fuzzy logic: it suffices to have a basic understanding of how linguistic rules can be applied to the user's problem. The Fuzzy Logic Engine is divided into two modules: (1) a graphical-interface software tool for creating linguistic fuzzy sets and conditional statements and (2) a fuzzy-logic software library for embedding fuzzy processing capability into current application programs. The graphical- interface tool was developed using the Tcl/Tk programming language. The fuzzy-logic software library was written in the C programming language.

Programming biological models in Python using PySB

PubMed Central

Lopez, Carlos F; Muhlich, Jeremy L; Bachman, John A; Sorger, Peter K

2013-01-01

Mathematical equations are fundamental to modeling biological networks, but as networks get large and revisions frequent, it becomes difficult to manage equations directly or to combine previously developed models. Multiple simultaneous efforts to create graphical standards, rule-based languages, and integrated software workbenches aim to simplify biological modeling but none fully meets the need for transparent, extensible, and reusable models. In this paper we describe PySB, an approach in which models are not only created using programs, they are programs. PySB draws on programmatic modeling concepts from little b and ProMot, the rule-based languages BioNetGen and Kappa and the growing library of Python numerical tools. Central to PySB is a library of macros encoding familiar biochemical actions such as binding, catalysis, and polymerization, making it possible to use a high-level, action-oriented vocabulary to construct detailed models. As Python programs, PySB models leverage tools and practices from the open-source software community, substantially advancing our ability to distribute and manage the work of testing biochemical hypotheses. We illustrate these ideas using new and previously published models of apoptosis. PMID:23423320

An Ada programming support environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tyrrill, AL; Chan, A. David

1986-01-01

The toolset of an Ada Programming Support Environment (APSE) being developed at North American Aircraft Operations (NAAO) of Rockwell International, is described. The APSE is resident on three different hosts and must support developments for the hosts and for embedded targets. Tools and developed software must be freely portable between the hosts. The toolset includes the usual editors, compilers, linkers, debuggers, configuration magnagers, and documentation tools. Generally, these are being supplied by the host computer vendors. Other tools, for example, pretty printer, cross referencer, compilation order tool, and management tools were obtained from public-domain sources, are implemented in Ada and are being ported to the hosts. Several tools being implemented in-house are of interest, these include an Ada Design Language processor based on compilable Ada. A Standalone Test Environment Generator facilitates test tool construction and partially automates unit level testing. A Code Auditor/Static Analyzer permits the Ada programs to be evaluated against measures of quality. An Ada Comment Box Generator partially automates generation of header comment boxes.

Using qualitative methods to improve questionnaires for Spanish speakers: assessing face validity of a food behavior checklist.

PubMed

Banna, Jinan C; Vera Becerra, Luz E; Kaiser, Lucia L; Townsend, Marilyn S

2010-01-01

Development of outcome measures relevant to health nutrition behaviors requires a rigorous process of testing and revision. Whereas researchers often report performance of quantitative data collection to assess questionnaire validity and reliability, qualitative testing procedures are often overlooked. This report outlines a procedure for assessing face validity of a Spanish-language dietary assessment tool. Reviewing the literature produced no rigorously validated Spanish-language food behavior assessment tools for the US Department of Agriculture's food assistance and education programs. In response to this need, this study evaluated the face validity of a Spanish-language food behavior checklist adapted from a 16-item English version of a food behavior checklist shown to be valid and reliable for limited-resource English speakers. The English version was translated using rigorous methods involving initial translation by one party and creation of five possible versions. Photos were modified based on client input and new photos were taken as necessary. A sample of low-income, Spanish-speaking women completed cognitive interviews (n=20). Spanish translation experts (n=7) fluent in both languages and familiar with both cultures made minor modifications but essentially approved client preferences. The resulting checklist generated a readability score of 93, indicating low reading difficulty. The Spanish-language checklist has adequate face validity in the target population and is ready for further validation using convergent measures. At the conclusion of testing, this instrument may be used to evaluate nutrition education interventions in California. These qualitative procedures provide a framework for designing evaluation tools for low-literate audiences participating in the US Department of Agriculture food assistance and education programs. Copyright 2010 American Dietetic Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Using Qualitative Methods to Improve Questionnaires for Spanish Speakers: Assessing Face Validity of a Food Behavior Checklist

PubMed Central

BANNA, JINAN C.; VERA BECERRA, LUZ E.; KAISER, LUCIA L.; TOWNSEND, MARILYN S.

2015-01-01

Development of outcome measures relevant to health nutrition behaviors requires a rigorous process of testing and revision. Whereas researchers often report performance of quantitative data collection to assess questionnaire validity and reliability, qualitative testing procedures are often overlooked. This report outlines a procedure for assessing face validity of a Spanish-language dietary assessment tool. Reviewing the literature produced no rigorously validated Spanish-language food behavior assessment tools for the US Department of Agriculture’s food assistance and education programs. In response to this need, this study evaluated the face validity of a Spanish-language food behavior checklist adapted from a 16-item English version of a food behavior checklist shown to be valid and reliable for limited-resource English speakers. The English version was translated using rigorous methods involving initial translation by one party and creation of five possible versions. Photos were modified based on client input and new photos were taken as necessary. A sample of low-income, Spanish-speaking women completed cognitive interviews (n=20). Spanish translation experts (n=7) fluent in both languages and familiar with both cultures made minor modifications but essentially approved client preferences. The resulting checklist generated a readability score of 93, indicating low reading difficulty. The Spanish-language checklist has adequate face validity in the target population and is ready for further validation using convergent measures. At the conclusion of testing, this instrument may be used to evaluate nutrition education interventions in California. These qualitative procedures provide a framework for designing evaluation tools for low-literate audiences participating in the US Department of Agriculture food assistance and education programs. PMID:20102831

The SURE reliability analysis program

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Butler, R. W.

1986-01-01

The SURE program is a new reliability tool for ultrareliable computer system architectures. The program is based on computational methods recently developed for the NASA Langley Research Center. These methods provide an efficient means for computing accurate upper and lower bounds for the death state probabilities of a large class of semi-Markov models. Once a semi-Markov model is described using a simple input language, the SURE program automatically computes the upper and lower bounds on the probability of system failure. A parameter of the model can be specified as a variable over a range of values directing the SURE program to perform a sensitivity analysis automatically. This feature, along with the speed of the program, makes it especially useful as a design tool.

The SURE Reliability Analysis Program

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Butler, R. W.

1986-01-01

The SURE program is a new reliability analysis tool for ultrareliable computer system architectures. The program is based on computational methods recently developed for the NASA Langley Research Center. These methods provide an efficient means for computing accurate upper and lower bounds for the death state probabilities of a large class of semi-Markov models. Once a semi-Markov model is described using a simple input language, the SURE program automatically computes the upper and lower bounds on the probability of system failure. A parameter of the model can be specified as a variable over a range of values directing the SURE program to perform a sensitivity analysis automatically. This feature, along with the speed of the program, makes it especially useful as a design tool.

JOVIAL J73 Automated Verification System - Study Phase

DTIC Science & Technology

1980-08-01

capabil- ities for the tool, and the high-level design of the tool are also described. Future capabilities for the tool are identified. -N CONTENTS...Implemented Test Tools 3-22 4 FUNCTIONAL DESCRIPTION OF Ji3AVS 4-1 4.1 Summary of Capabilities 4-3 4.2 J 3.AVS Operat . 4-11 5 DESIGN OF J73AVS 5-1 6...Both JOVIAL languages are primarily designed for command and control system programming. They are es- pecially well suited to large systems requiring

Current trends for customized biomedical software tools.

PubMed

Khan, Haseeb Ahmad

2017-01-01

In the past, biomedical scientists were solely dependent on expensive commercial software packages for various applications. However, the advent of user-friendly programming languages and open source platforms has revolutionized the development of simple and efficient customized software tools for solving specific biomedical problems. Many of these tools are designed and developed by biomedical scientists independently or with the support of computer experts and often made freely available for the benefit of scientific community. The current trends for customized biomedical software tools are highlighted in this short review.

An introduction to scripting in Ruby for biologists.

PubMed

Aerts, Jan; Law, Andy

2009-07-16

The Ruby programming language has a lot to offer to any scientist with electronic data to process. Not only is the initial learning curve very shallow, but its reflection and meta-programming capabilities allow for the rapid creation of relatively complex applications while still keeping the code short and readable. This paper provides a gentle introduction to this scripting language for researchers without formal informatics training such as many wet-lab scientists. We hope this will provide such researchers an idea of how powerful a tool Ruby can be for their data management tasks and encourage them to learn more about it.

ESNIB (European Science Notes Information Bulletin): Reports on Current European/Middle Eastern Science

DTIC Science & Technology

1989-11-01

tool for planning, programming , The TERMOS is a digital terrain modeling system and simulating, initiating, and surveying small-scale was developed ...workshop fea- (FRG) turing the European Strategic Program for Research and Conference Language: English Development in Information Technologies...self- * Research and Development in the Numerical addressed mailer and return it to ONREUR. Aerodynamic Systems Program , R. Bailey, NASA

Software in the Classroom: Issues in the Design of Effective Software Tools. Technical Report No. 15.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kurland, D. Midian

This paper identifies three ways that computers are used in educational contexts. The first and most widespread use is as a tutor, i.e., as a delivery system for programmed instruction and drill-and-practice activities. The second use is as a programming environment to teach programming languages such as BASIC, LOGO, or PASCAL. The third use is as…

Natural language processing pipelines to annotate BioC collections with an application to the NCBI disease corpus.

PubMed

Comeau, Donald C; Liu, Haibin; Islamaj Doğan, Rezarta; Wilbur, W John

2014-01-01

BioC is a new format and associated code libraries for sharing text and annotations. We have implemented BioC natural language preprocessing pipelines in two popular programming languages: C++ and Java. The current implementations interface with the well-known MedPost and Stanford natural language processing tool sets. The pipeline functionality includes sentence segmentation, tokenization, part-of-speech tagging, lemmatization and sentence parsing. These pipelines can be easily integrated along with other BioC programs into any BioC compliant text mining systems. As an application, we converted the NCBI disease corpus to BioC format, and the pipelines have successfully run on this corpus to demonstrate their functionality. Code and data can be downloaded from http://bioc.sourceforge.net. Database URL: http://bioc.sourceforge.net. © The Author(s) 2014. Published by Oxford University Press.

Using an architectural approach to integrate heterogeneous, distributed software components

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Callahan, John R.; Purtilo, James M.

1995-01-01

Many computer programs cannot be easily integrated because their components are distributed and heterogeneous, i.e., they are implemented in diverse programming languages, use different data representation formats, or their runtime environments are incompatible. In many cases, programs are integrated by modifying their components or interposing mechanisms that handle communication and conversion tasks. For example, remote procedure call (RPC) helps integrate heterogeneous, distributed programs. When configuring such programs, however, mechanisms like RPC must be used explicitly by software developers in order to integrate collections of diverse components. Each collection may require a unique integration solution. This paper describes improvements to the concepts of software packaging and some of our experiences in constructing complex software systems from a wide variety of components in different execution environments. Software packaging is a process that automatically determines how to integrate a diverse collection of computer programs based on the types of components involved and the capabilities of available translators and adapters in an environment. Software packaging provides a context that relates such mechanisms to software integration processes and reduces the cost of configuring applications whose components are distributed or implemented in different programming languages. Our software packaging tool subsumes traditional integration tools like UNIX make by providing a rule-based approach to software integration that is independent of execution environments.

Microarray Я US: a user-friendly graphical interface to Bioconductor tools that enables accurate microarray data analysis and expedites comprehensive functional analysis of microarray results.

PubMed

Dai, Yilin; Guo, Ling; Li, Meng; Chen, Yi-Bu

2012-06-08

Microarray data analysis presents a significant challenge to researchers who are unable to use the powerful Bioconductor and its numerous tools due to their lack of knowledge of R language. Among the few existing software programs that offer a graphic user interface to Bioconductor packages, none have implemented a comprehensive strategy to address the accuracy and reliability issue of microarray data analysis due to the well known probe design problems associated with many widely used microarray chips. There is also a lack of tools that would expedite the functional analysis of microarray results. We present Microarray Я US, an R-based graphical user interface that implements over a dozen popular Bioconductor packages to offer researchers a streamlined workflow for routine differential microarray expression data analysis without the need to learn R language. In order to enable a more accurate analysis and interpretation of microarray data, we incorporated the latest custom probe re-definition and re-annotation for Affymetrix and Illumina chips. A versatile microarray results output utility tool was also implemented for easy and fast generation of input files for over 20 of the most widely used functional analysis software programs. Coupled with a well-designed user interface, Microarray Я US leverages cutting edge Bioconductor packages for researchers with no knowledge in R language. It also enables a more reliable and accurate microarray data analysis and expedites downstream functional analysis of microarray results.

Shuttle Data Center File-Processing Tool in Java

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Barry, Matthew R.; Miller, Walter H.

2006-01-01

A Java-language computer program has been written to facilitate mining of data in files in the Shuttle Data Center (SDC) archives. This program can be executed on a variety of workstations or via Web-browser programs. This program is partly similar to prior C-language programs used for the same purpose, while differing from those programs in that it exploits the platform-neutrality of Java in implementing several features that are important for analysis of large sets of time-series data. The program supports regular expression queries of SDC archive files, reads the files, interleaves the time-stamped samples according to a chosen output, then transforms the results into that format. A user can choose among a variety of output file formats that are useful for diverse purposes, including plotting, Markov modeling, multivariate density estimation, and wavelet multiresolution analysis, as well as for playback of data in support of simulation and testing.

Speech-Enabled Tools for Augmented Interaction in E-Learning Applications

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Selouani, Sid-Ahmed A.; Lê, Tang-Hô; Benahmed, Yacine; O'Shaughnessy, Douglas

2008-01-01

This article presents systems that use speech technology, to emulate the one-on-one interaction a student can get from a virtual instructor. A web-based learning tool, the Learn IN Context (LINC+) system, designed and used in a real mixed-mode learning context for a computer (C++ language) programming course taught at the Université de Moncton…

Integration of an expert system into a user interface language demonstration

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Stclair, D. C.

1986-01-01

The need for a User Interface Language (UIL) has been recognized by the Space Station Program Office as a necessary tool to aid in minimizing the cost of software generation by multiple users. Previous history in the Space Shuttle Program has shown that many different areas of software generation, such as operations, integration, testing, etc., have each used a different user command language although the types of operations being performed were similar in many respects. Since the Space Station represents a much more complex software task, a common user command language--a user interface language--is required to support the large spectrum of space station software developers and users. To assist in the selection of an appropriate set of definitions for a UIL, a series of demonstration programs was generated with which to test UIL concepts against specific Space Station scenarios using operators for the astronaut and scientific community. Because of the importance of expert system in the space station, it was decided that an expert system should be embedded in the UIL. This would not only provide insight into the UIL components required but would indicate the effectiveness with which an expert system could function in such an environment.

Interviews with College Students: Evaluating Computer Programming Environments for Introductory Courses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Uysal, Murat Pasa

2014-01-01

Different methods, strategies, or tools have been proposed for teaching Object Oriented Programming (OOP). However, it is still difficult to introduce OOP to novice learners. The problem may be not only adopting a method or language, but also use of an appropriate integrated development environment (IDE). Therefore, the focus should be on the…

Enhancing ESL Vocabulary Development through the Use of Mobile Technology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nisbet, Deanna; Austin, Dayna

2013-01-01

Applications, or apps, that are available for both smart phones and tablets can be an effective tool for promoting vocabulary development among adult learners in English as a second language programs. An app is a software program for a mobile phone or computer operating system. Examples of such apps are provided along with practical…

Can you build an iPhone app without writing a single line of code?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ramachandran, R.; Maskey, M.

2011-12-01

At the last ESIP summer meeting, a study was conducted to explore different commercial tools now available that allow one to create a mobile app without writing a single line of code. The proposed research comprised of two components. First, systematically evaluate different tools to create mobile apps along the dimensions of features and price. Second, create an iPhone app prototype for the ESIP community using some of these tools. The initial assessment classified the currently available tools to create mobile app tools into two categories. The tools that fall under the first category require no programming, but the content for the mobile apps are fed to it either via a web site RSS feed or entered manually. Consequently, these tools only support limited user interactivity. These tools follow the business model of website hosting services. This business model offers a set of templates to the end users with limited customization features to create their content in order to publish to websites. The second category of tools requires programming, but the code can be written in popular languages such as Javascript (compatible with most mobile platforms) rather than mobile app specific languages. For the second component of the study, two ESIP iPhone app prototypes were created. The first prototype required no programming and used the AppMakr tool. Objective C was used to create the second iPhone prototype from scratch and the source code for this prototype is available on the ESIP website. The study concluded that existing tools do make it easy to create a simple mobile app especially if one already has a well designed website. The associated costs are adequate but not cheap. However, if the mobile app has requirements that require interactivity and specialized customization then one needs to work with a mobile app developer.

ANTLR Tree Grammar Generator and Extensions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Craymer, Loring

2005-01-01

A computer program implements two extensions of ANTLR (Another Tool for Language Recognition), which is a set of software tools for translating source codes between different computing languages. ANTLR supports predicated- LL(k) lexer and parser grammars, a notation for annotating parser grammars to direct tree construction, and predicated tree grammars. [ LL(k) signifies left-right, leftmost derivation with k tokens of look-ahead, referring to certain characteristics of a grammar.] One of the extensions is a syntax for tree transformations. The other extension is the generation of tree grammars from annotated parser or input tree grammars. These extensions can simplify the process of generating source-to-source language translators and they make possible an approach, called "polyphase parsing," to translation between computing languages. The typical approach to translator development is to identify high-level semantic constructs such as "expressions," "declarations," and "definitions" as fundamental building blocks in the grammar specification used for language recognition. The polyphase approach is to lump ambiguous syntactic constructs during parsing and then disambiguate the alternatives in subsequent tree transformation passes. Polyphase parsing is believed to be useful for generating efficient recognizers for C++ and other languages that, like C++, have significant ambiguities.

Defining linkages between the GSC and NSF's LTER program: How the Ecological Metadata Language (EML) relates to GCDML and other outcomes

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Inigo, Gil San; Servilla, Mark; Brunt, James

2008-06-01

The Genomic Standards Consortium (GSC) invited a representative of the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) to its fifth workshop to present the Ecological Metadata Language (EML) metadata standard and its relationship to the Minimum Information about a Genome/Metagenome Sequence (MIGS/MIMS) and its implementation, the Genomic Contextual Data Markup Language (GCDML). The LTER is one of the top National Science Foundation (NSF) programs in biology since 1980, representing diverse ecosystems and creating long-term, interdisciplinary research, synthesis of information, and theory. The adoption of EML as the LTER network standard has been key to build network synthesis architectures based on high-quality standardized metadata.more » EML is the NSF-recognized metadata standard for LTER, and EML is a criteria used to review the LTER program progress. At the workshop, a potential crosswalk between the GCDML and EML was explored. Also, collaboration between the LTER and GSC developers was proposed to join efforts toward a common metadata cataloging designer's tool. The community adoption success of a metadata standard depends, among other factors, on the tools and trainings developed to use the standard. LTER's experience in embracing EML may help GSC to achieve similar success. A possible collaboration between LTER and GSC to provide training opportunities for GCDML and the associated tools is being explored. Finally, LTER is investigating EML enhancements to better accommodate genomics data, possibly integrating the GCDML schema into EML. All these action items have been accepted by the LTER contingent, and further collaboration between the GSC and LTER is expected.« less

Defining linkages between the GSC and NSF's LTER program: how the Ecological Metadata Language (EML) relates to GCDML and other outcomes.

PubMed

Gil, Inigo San; Sheldon, Wade; Schmidt, Tom; Servilla, Mark; Aguilar, Raul; Gries, Corinna; Gray, Tanya; Field, Dawn; Cole, James; Pan, Jerry Yun; Palanisamy, Giri; Henshaw, Donald; O'Brien, Margaret; Kinkel, Linda; McMahon, Katherine; Kottmann, Renzo; Amaral-Zettler, Linda; Hobbie, John; Goldstein, Philip; Guralnick, Robert P; Brunt, James; Michener, William K

2008-06-01

The Genomic Standards Consortium (GSC) invited a representative of the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) to its fifth workshop to present the Ecological Metadata Language (EML) metadata standard and its relationship to the Minimum Information about a Genome/Metagenome Sequence (MIGS/MIMS) and its implementation, the Genomic Contextual Data Markup Language (GCDML). The LTER is one of the top National Science Foundation (NSF) programs in biology since 1980, representing diverse ecosystems and creating long-term, interdisciplinary research, synthesis of information, and theory. The adoption of EML as the LTER network standard has been key to build network synthesis architectures based on high-quality standardized metadata. EML is the NSF-recognized metadata standard for LTER, and EML is a criteria used to review the LTER program progress. At the workshop, a potential crosswalk between the GCDML and EML was explored. Also, collaboration between the LTER and GSC developers was proposed to join efforts toward a common metadata cataloging designer's tool. The community adoption success of a metadata standard depends, among other factors, on the tools and trainings developed to use the standard. LTER's experience in embracing EML may help GSC to achieve similar success. A possible collaboration between LTER and GSC to provide training opportunities for GCDML and the associated tools is being explored. Finally, LTER is investigating EML enhancements to better accommodate genomics data, possibly integrating the GCDML schema into EML. All these action items have been accepted by the LTER contingent, and further collaboration between the GSC and LTER is expected.

Management Tools

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1987-01-01

Manugistics, Inc. (formerly AVYX, Inc.) has introduced a new programming language for IBM and IBM compatible computers called TREES-pls. It is a resource management tool originating from the space shuttle, that can be used in such applications as scheduling, resource allocation project control, information management, and artificial intelligence. Manugistics, Inc. was looking for a flexible tool that can be applied to many problems with minimal adaptation. Among the non-government markets are aerospace, other manufacturing, transportation, health care, food and beverage and professional services.

LISP as an Environment for Software Design: Powerful and Perspicuous

PubMed Central

Blum, Robert L.; Walker, Michael G.

1986-01-01

The LISP language provides a useful set of features for prototyping knowledge-intensive, clinical applications software that is not found In most other programing environments. Medical computer programs that need large medical knowledge bases, such as programs for diagnosis, therapeutic consultation, education, simulation, and peer review, are hard to design, evolve continually, and often require major revisions. They necessitate an efficient and flexible program development environment. The LISP language and programming environments bullt around it are well suited for program prototyping. The lingua franca of artifical intelligence researchers, LISP facllitates bullding complex systems because it is simple yet powerful. Because of its simplicity, LISP programs can read, execute, modify and even compose other LISP programs at run time. Hence, it has been easy for system developers to create programming tools that greatly speed the program development process, and that may be easily extended by users. This has resulted in the creation of many useful graphical interfaces, editors, and debuggers, which facllitate the development of knowledge-intensive medical applications.

Prototyping with Data Dictionaries for Requirements Analysis.

DTIC Science & Technology

1985-03-01

statistical packages and software for screen layout. These items work at a higher level than another category of prototyping tool, program generators... Program generators are software packages which, when given specifications, produce source listings, usually in a high order language such as COBCL...with users and this will not happen if he must stop to develcp a detailed program . [Ref. 241] Hardware as well as software should be considered in

ESDAPT - APT PROGRAMMING EDITOR AND INTERPRETER

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Premack, T.

1994-01-01

ESDAPT is a graphical programming environment for developing APT (Automatically Programmed Tool) programs for controlling numerically controlled machine tools. ESDAPT has a graphical user interface that provides the user with an APT syntax sensitive text editor and windows for displaying geometry and tool paths. APT geometry statement can also be created using menus and screen picks. ESDAPT interprets APT geometry statements and displays the results in its view windows. Tool paths are generated by batching the APT source to an APT processor (COSMIC P-APT recommended). The tool paths are then displayed in the view windows. Hardcopy output of the view windows is in color PostScript format. ESDAPT is written in C-language, yacc, lex, and XView for use on Sun4 series computers running SunOS. ESDAPT requires 4Mb of disk space, 7Mb of RAM, and MIT's X Window System, Version 11 Release 4, or OpenWindows version 3 for execution. Program documentation in PostScript format and an executable for OpenWindows version 3 are provided on the distribution media. The standard distribution medium for ESDAPT is a .25 inch streaming magnetic tape cartridge (Sun QIC-24) in UNIX tar format. This program was developed in 1992.

Current implementation and future plans on new code architecture, programming language and user interface

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Brun, B.

1997-07-01

Computer technology has improved tremendously during the last years with larger media capacity, memory and more computational power. Visual computing with high-performance graphic interface and desktop computational power have changed the way engineers accomplish everyday tasks, development and safety studies analysis. The emergence of parallel computing will permit simulation over a larger domain. In addition, new development methods, languages and tools have appeared in the last several years.

Multi-national, multi-lingual, multi-professional CATs: (Curriculum Analysis Tools).

PubMed

Eisner, J

1995-01-01

A consortium of dental schools and allied dental programs was established in 1991 with the expressed purpose of creating a curriculum database program that was end-user modifiable [1]. In April of 1994, a beta version (Beta 2.5 written in FoxPro(TM) 2.5) of the software CATs, an acronym for Curriculum Analysis Tools, was released for use by over 30 of the consortium's 60 member institutions, while the remainder either waited for the Macintosh (TM) or Windows (TM) versions of the program or were simply not ready to begin an institutional curriculum analysis project. Shortly after this release, the design specifications were rewritten based on a thorough critique of the Beta 2.5 design and coding structures and user feedback. The result was Beta 3.0 which has been designed to accommodate any health professions curriculum, in any country that uses English or French as one of its languages. Given the program's extensive use of screen generation tools, it was quite easy to offer screen displays in a second language. As more languages become available as part of the Unified Medical Language System, used to document curriculum content, the program's design will allow their incorporation. When the software arrives at a new institution, the choice of language and health profession will have been preselected, leaving the Curriculum Database Manager to identify the country where the member institution is located. With these 'macro' end-user decisions completed, the database manager can turn to a more specific set of end-user questions including: 1) will the curriculum view selected for analysis be created by the course directors (provider entry of structured course outlines) or by the students (consumer entry of class session summaries)?; 2) which elements within the provided course outline or class session modules will be used?; 3) which, if any, internal curriculum validation measures will be included?; and 4) which, if any, external validation measures will be included. External measures can include accreditation standards, entry-level practitioner competencies, an index of learning behaviors, an index of discipline integration, or others defined by the institution. When data entry, which is secure to the course level, is complete users may choose to browse a variety of graphic representations of their curriculum, or either preview or print a variety of reports that offer more detail about the content and adequacy of their curriculum. The progress of all data entry can be monitored by the database manager over the course of an academic year, and all reports contain extensive missing data reports to ensure that the user knows whether they are studying complete or partial data. Institutions using the beta version of the program have reported considerable satisfaction with its functionality and have also offered a variety of design and interface enhancements. The anticipated release date for Curriculum Analysis Tools (CATs) is the first quarter of 1995.

Knowledge-based machine indexing from natural language text: Knowledge base design, development, and maintenance

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Genuardi, Michael T.

1993-01-01

One strategy for machine-aided indexing (MAI) is to provide a concept-level analysis of the textual elements of documents or document abstracts. In such systems, natural-language phrases are analyzed in order to identify and classify concepts related to a particular subject domain. The overall performance of these MAI systems is largely dependent on the quality and comprehensiveness of their knowledge bases. These knowledge bases function to (1) define the relations between a controlled indexing vocabulary and natural language expressions; (2) provide a simple mechanism for disambiguation and the determination of relevancy; and (3) allow the extension of concept-hierarchical structure to all elements of the knowledge file. After a brief description of the NASA Machine-Aided Indexing system, concerns related to the development and maintenance of MAI knowledge bases are discussed. Particular emphasis is given to statistically-based text analysis tools designed to aid the knowledge base developer. One such tool, the Knowledge Base Building (KBB) program, presents the domain expert with a well-filtered list of synonyms and conceptually-related phrases for each thesaurus concept. Another tool, the Knowledge Base Maintenance (KBM) program, functions to identify areas of the knowledge base affected by changes in the conceptual domain (for example, the addition of a new thesaurus term). An alternate use of the KBM as an aid in thesaurus construction is also discussed.

Cognitive Enhancement Using ICT and Its Ethical Implications.

PubMed

Doukakis, Spyros; Stamatellos, Giannis; Glinou, Nektaria

2017-01-01

The utilization of digital tools aiming at the cognitive enhancement of students and adults, so that they can achieve better performance and professional or academic success, has increased in recent years. This paper focuses on ICT tools such as computer games, programming languages and educational software as means for cognitive enhancement and attempts to highlight their contributions. Issues of design and the limitations of digital tools are discussed. In the final section, the ethical implications of using educational ICT tools for cognitive enhancement from a virtue ethics perspective are presented.

Multinational trials-recommendations on the translations required, approaches to using the same language in different countries, and the approaches to support pooling the data: the ISPOR Patient-Reported Outcomes Translation and Linguistic Validation Good Research Practices Task Force report.

PubMed

Wild, Diane; Eremenco, Sonya; Mear, Isabelle; Martin, Mona; Houchin, Caroline; Gawlicki, Mary; Hareendran, Asha; Wiklund, Ingela; Chong, Lee Yee; von Maltzahn, Robyn; Cohen, Lawrence; Molsen, Elizabeth

2009-06-01

With the internationalization of clinical trial programs, there is an increased need to translate and culturally adapt patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures. Although guidelines for good practices in translation and linguistic validation are available, the ISPOR Patient-Reported Outcomes Translation and Linguistic Validation Task Force identified a number of areas where they felt that further discussion around methods and best practices would be beneficial. The areas identified by the team were as follows: 1) the selection of the languages required for multinational trials; 2) the approaches suggested when the same language is required across two or more countries; and 3) the assessment of measurement equivalence to support the aggregation of data from different countries. The task force addressed these three areas, reviewed the available literature, and had multiple discussions to develop this report. Decision aid tools have also been developed and presented for the selection of languages and the approaches suggested for the use of the same language in different countries. It is hoped that this report and the decision tools proposed will assist those involved with multinational trials to 1) decide on the translations required for each country; 2) choose the approach to use when the same language is spoken in more than one country; and 3) choose methods to gather evidence to support the pooling of data collected using different language versions of the same tool.

An introduction to scripting in Ruby for biologists

PubMed Central

Aerts, Jan; Law, Andy

2009-01-01

The Ruby programming language has a lot to offer to any scientist with electronic data to process. Not only is the initial learning curve very shallow, but its reflection and meta-programming capabilities allow for the rapid creation of relatively complex applications while still keeping the code short and readable. This paper provides a gentle introduction to this scripting language for researchers without formal informatics training such as many wet-lab scientists. We hope this will provide such researchers an idea of how powerful a tool Ruby can be for their data management tasks and encourage them to learn more about it. PMID:19607723

The Creation of a CPU Timer for High Fidelity Programs

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dick, Aidan A.

2011-01-01

Using C and C++ programming languages, a tool was developed that measures the efficiency of a program by recording the amount of CPU time that various functions consume. By inserting the tool between lines of code in the program, one can receive a detailed report of the absolute and relative time consumption associated with each section. After adapting the generic tool for a high-fidelity launch vehicle simulation program called MAVERIC, the components of a frequently used function called "derivatives ( )" were measured. Out of the 34 sub-functions in "derivatives ( )", it was found that the top 8 sub-functions made up 83.1% of the total time spent. In order to decrease the overall run time of MAVERIC, a launch vehicle simulation program, a change was implemented in the sub-function "Event_Controller ( )". Reformatting "Event_Controller ( )" led to a 36.9% decrease in the total CPU time spent by that sub-function, and a 3.2% decrease in the total CPU time spent by the overarching function "derivatives ( )".

PyPele Rewritten To Use MPI

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hockney, George; Lee, Seungwon

2008-01-01

A computer program known as PyPele, originally written as a Pythonlanguage extension module of a C++ language program, has been rewritten in pure Python language. The original version of PyPele dispatches and coordinates parallel-processing tasks on cluster computers and provides a conceptual framework for spacecraft-mission- design and -analysis software tools to run in an embarrassingly parallel mode. The original version of PyPele uses SSH (Secure Shell a set of standards and an associated network protocol for establishing a secure channel between a local and a remote computer) to coordinate parallel processing. Instead of SSH, the present Python version of PyPele uses Message Passing Interface (MPI) [an unofficial de-facto standard language-independent application programming interface for message- passing on a parallel computer] while keeping the same user interface. The use of MPI instead of SSH and the preservation of the original PyPele user interface make it possible for parallel application programs written previously for the original version of PyPele to run on MPI-based cluster computers. As a result, engineers using the previously written application programs can take advantage of embarrassing parallelism without need to rewrite those programs.

Institutions of Higher Education as Public Diplomacy Tools: China-Based University Programs for the 21st Century

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Metzgar, Emily T.

2016-01-01

Two flagship Chinese universities are home to newly established English-language graduate programs intended to arm international cohorts of future leaders with the skills, knowledge, and insights necessary to thrive in a world in which China will play a leading role. Employing the literature of international education and public diplomacy, this…

Interactional Practices Used in the Teaching of Conflict Prevention and Resolution Skills in an Innovative Safe School Program at an Elementary School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shin, Annalise Grace

2010-01-01

Within the framework of language socialization, this dissertation uses conversation analytic and ethnographic methods to examine the interactional practices used by the adult safe school educator at a progressive elementary school to socialize students into beliefs and practices associated with the school's Cool Tools Safe School Program. Cool…

Computing tools for implementing standards for single-case designs.

PubMed

Chen, Li-Ting; Peng, Chao-Ying Joanne; Chen, Ming-E

2015-11-01

In the single-case design (SCD) literature, five sets of standards have been formulated and distinguished: design standards, assessment standards, analysis standards, reporting standards, and research synthesis standards. This article reviews computing tools that can assist researchers and practitioners in meeting the analysis standards recommended by the What Works Clearinghouse: Procedures and Standards Handbook-the WWC standards. These tools consist of specialized web-based calculators or downloadable software for SCD data, and algorithms or programs written in Excel, SAS procedures, SPSS commands/Macros, or the R programming language. We aligned these tools with the WWC standards and evaluated them for accuracy and treatment of missing data, using two published data sets. All tools were tested to be accurate. When missing data were present, most tools either gave an error message or conducted analysis based on the available data. Only one program used a single imputation method. This article concludes with suggestions for an inclusive computing tool or environment, additional research on the treatment of missing data, and reasonable and flexible interpretations of the WWC standards. © The Author(s) 2015.

STAR (Simple Tool for Automated Reasoning): Tutorial guide and reference manual

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Borchardt, G. C.

1985-01-01

STAR is an interactive, interpreted programming language for the development and operation of Artificial Intelligence application systems. The language is intended for use primarily in the development of software application systems which rely on a combination of symbolic processing, central to the vast majority of AI algorithms, with routines and data structures defined in compiled languages such as C, FORTRAN and PASCAL. References to routines and data structures defined in compiled languages are intermixed with symbolic structures in STAR, resulting in a hybrid operating environment in which symbolic and non-symbolic processing and organization of data may interact to a high degree within the execution of particular application systems. The STAR language was developed in the course of a project involving AI techniques in the interpretation of imaging spectrometer data and is derived in part from a previous language called CLIP. The interpreter for STAR is implemented as a program defined in the language C and has been made available for distribution in source code form through NASA's Computer Software Management and Information Center (COSMIC). Contained within this report are the STAR Tutorial Guide, which introduces the language in a step-by-step manner, and the STAR Reference Manual, which provides a detailed summary of the features of STAR.

Psychophysica: Mathematica notebooks for psychophysical experiments (cinematica--psychometrica--quest)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Watson, A. B.; Solomon, J. A.

1997-01-01

Psychophysica is a set of software tools for psychophysical research. Functions are provided for calibrated visual displays, for fitting and plotting of psychometric functions, and for the QUEST adaptive staircase procedure. The functions are written in the Mathematica programming language.

Probability and Statistics in Sensor Performance Modeling

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-12-01

language software program is called Environmental Awareness for Sensor and Emitter Employment. Some important numerical issues in the implementation...3 Statistical analysis for measuring sensor performance...complementary cumulative distribution function cdf cumulative distribution function DST decision-support tool EASEE Environmental Awareness of

Netlang: A software for the linguistic analysis of corpora by means of complex networks

PubMed Central

Serna Salazar, Diego; Isaza, Gustavo; Castillo Ossa, Luis F.; Bedia, Manuel G.

2017-01-01

To date there is no software that directly connects the linguistic analysis of a conversation to a network program. Networks programs are able to extract statistical information from data basis with information about systems of interacting elements. Language has also been conceived and studied as a complex system. However, most proposals do not analyze language according to linguistic theory, but use instead computational systems that should save time at the price of leaving aside many crucial aspects for linguistic theory. Some approaches to network studies on language do apply precise linguistic analyses, made by a linguist. The problem until now has been the lack of interface between the analysis of a sentence and its integration into the network that could be managed by a linguist and that could save the analysis of any language. Previous works have used old software that was not created for these purposes and that often produced problems with some idiosyncrasies of the target language. The desired interface should be able to deal with the syntactic peculiarities of a particular language, the options of linguistic theory preferred by the user and the preservation of morpho-syntactic information (lexical categories and syntactic relations between items). Netlang is the first program able to do that. Recently, a new kind of linguistic analysis has been developed, which is able to extract a complexity pattern from the speaker's linguistic production which is depicted as a network where words are inside nodes, and these nodes connect each other by means of edges or links (the information inside the edge can be syntactic, semantic, etc.). The Netlang software has become the bridge between rough linguistic data and the network program. Netlang has integrated and improved the functions of programs used in the past, namely the DGA annotator and two scripts (ToXML.pl and Xml2Pairs.py) used for transforming and pruning data. Netlang allows the researcher to make accurate linguistic analysis by means of syntactic dependency relations between words, while tracking record of the nature of such syntactic relationships (subject, object, etc). The Netlang software is presented as a new tool that solve many problems detected in the past. The most important improvement is that Netlang integrates three past applications into one program, and is able to produce a series of file formats that can be read by a network program. Through the Netlang software, the linguistic network analysis based on syntactic analyses, characterized for its low cost and the completely non-invasive procedure aims to evolve into a sufficiently fine grained tool for clinical diagnosis in potential cases of language disorders. PMID:28832598

Netlang: A software for the linguistic analysis of corpora by means of complex networks.

PubMed

Barceló-Coblijn, Lluís; Serna Salazar, Diego; Isaza, Gustavo; Castillo Ossa, Luis F; Bedia, Manuel G

2017-01-01

To date there is no software that directly connects the linguistic analysis of a conversation to a network program. Networks programs are able to extract statistical information from data basis with information about systems of interacting elements. Language has also been conceived and studied as a complex system. However, most proposals do not analyze language according to linguistic theory, but use instead computational systems that should save time at the price of leaving aside many crucial aspects for linguistic theory. Some approaches to network studies on language do apply precise linguistic analyses, made by a linguist. The problem until now has been the lack of interface between the analysis of a sentence and its integration into the network that could be managed by a linguist and that could save the analysis of any language. Previous works have used old software that was not created for these purposes and that often produced problems with some idiosyncrasies of the target language. The desired interface should be able to deal with the syntactic peculiarities of a particular language, the options of linguistic theory preferred by the user and the preservation of morpho-syntactic information (lexical categories and syntactic relations between items). Netlang is the first program able to do that. Recently, a new kind of linguistic analysis has been developed, which is able to extract a complexity pattern from the speaker's linguistic production which is depicted as a network where words are inside nodes, and these nodes connect each other by means of edges or links (the information inside the edge can be syntactic, semantic, etc.). The Netlang software has become the bridge between rough linguistic data and the network program. Netlang has integrated and improved the functions of programs used in the past, namely the DGA annotator and two scripts (ToXML.pl and Xml2Pairs.py) used for transforming and pruning data. Netlang allows the researcher to make accurate linguistic analysis by means of syntactic dependency relations between words, while tracking record of the nature of such syntactic relationships (subject, object, etc). The Netlang software is presented as a new tool that solve many problems detected in the past. The most important improvement is that Netlang integrates three past applications into one program, and is able to produce a series of file formats that can be read by a network program. Through the Netlang software, the linguistic network analysis based on syntactic analyses, characterized for its low cost and the completely non-invasive procedure aims to evolve into a sufficiently fine grained tool for clinical diagnosis in potential cases of language disorders.

Virtual Machine Language

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Grasso, Christopher; Page, Dennis; O'Reilly, Taifun; Fteichert, Ralph; Lock, Patricia; Lin, Imin; Naviaux, Keith; Sisino, John

2005-01-01

Virtual Machine Language (VML) is a mission-independent, reusable software system for programming for spacecraft operations. Features of VML include a rich set of data types, named functions, parameters, IF and WHILE control structures, polymorphism, and on-the-fly creation of spacecraft commands from calculated values. Spacecraft functions can be abstracted into named blocks that reside in files aboard the spacecraft. These named blocks accept parameters and execute in a repeatable fashion. The sizes of uplink products are minimized by the ability to call blocks that implement most of the command steps. This block approach also enables some autonomous operations aboard the spacecraft, such as aerobraking, telemetry conditional monitoring, and anomaly response, without developing autonomous flight software. Operators on the ground write blocks and command sequences in a concise, high-level, human-readable programming language (also called VML ). A compiler translates the human-readable blocks and command sequences into binary files (the operations products). The flight portion of VML interprets the uplinked binary files. The ground subsystem of VML also includes an interactive sequence- execution tool hosted on workstations, which runs sequences at several thousand times real-time speed, affords debugging, and generates reports. This tool enables iterative development of blocks and sequences within times of the order of seconds.

Spacecraft Guidance, Navigation, and Control Visualization Tool

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mandic, Milan; Acikmese, Behcet; Blackmore, Lars

2011-01-01

G-View is a 3D visualization tool for supporting spacecraft guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) simulations relevant to small-body exploration and sampling (see figure). The tool is developed in MATLAB using Virtual Reality Toolbox and provides users with the ability to visualize the behavior of their simulations, regardless of which programming language (or machine) is used to generate simulation results. The only requirement is that multi-body simulation data is generated and placed in the proper format before applying G-View.

Connecting Architecture and Implementation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Buchgeher, Georg; Weinreich, Rainer

Software architectures are still typically defined and described independently from implementation. To avoid architectural erosion and drift, architectural representation needs to be continuously updated and synchronized with system implementation. Existing approaches for architecture representation like informal architecture documentation, UML diagrams, and Architecture Description Languages (ADLs) provide only limited support for connecting architecture descriptions and implementations. Architecture management tools like Lattix, SonarJ, and Sotoarc and UML-tools tackle this problem by extracting architecture information directly from code. This approach works for low-level architectural abstractions like classes and interfaces in object-oriented systems but fails to support architectural abstractions not found in programming languages. In this paper we present an approach for linking and continuously synchronizing a formalized architecture representation to an implementation. The approach is a synthesis of functionality provided by code-centric architecture management and UML tools and higher-level architecture analysis approaches like ADLs.

An Overview of SAL

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bensalem, Saddek; Ganesh, Vijay; Lakhnech, Yassine; Munoz, Cesar; Owre, Sam; Ruess, Harald; Rushby, John; Rusu, Vlad; Saiedi, Hassen; Shankar, N.

2000-01-01

To become practical for assurance, automated formal methods must be made more scalable, automatic, and cost-effective. Such an increase in scope, scale, automation, and utility can be derived from an emphasis on a systematic separation of concerns during verification. SAL (Symbolic Analysis Laboratory) attempts to address these issues. It is a framework for combining different tools to calculate properties of concurrent systems. The heart of SAL is a language, developed in collaboration with Stanford, Berkeley, and Verimag for specifying concurrent systems in a compositional way. Our instantiation of the SAL framework augments PVS with tools for abstraction, invariant generation, program analysis (such as slicing), theorem proving, and model checking to separate concerns as well as calculate properties (i.e., perform, symbolic analysis) of concurrent systems. We. describe the motivation, the language, the tools, their integration in SAL/PAS, and some preliminary experience of their use.

Sawja: Static Analysis Workshop for Java

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hubert, Laurent; Barré, Nicolas; Besson, Frédéric; Demange, Delphine; Jensen, Thomas; Monfort, Vincent; Pichardie, David; Turpin, Tiphaine

Static analysis is a powerful technique for automatic verification of programs but raises major engineering challenges when developing a full-fledged analyzer for a realistic language such as Java. Efficiency and precision of such a tool rely partly on low level components which only depend on the syntactic structure of the language and therefore should not be redesigned for each implementation of a new static analysis. This paper describes the Sawja library: a static analysis workshop fully compliant with Java 6 which provides OCaml modules for efficiently manipulating Java bytecode programs. We present the main features of the library, including i) efficient functional data-structures for representing a program with implicit sharing and lazy parsing, ii) an intermediate stack-less representation, and iii) fast computation and manipulation of complete programs. We provide experimental evaluations of the different features with respect to time, memory and precision.

Unifying Model-Based and Reactive Programming within a Model-Based Executive

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Williams, Brian C.; Gupta, Vineet; Norvig, Peter (Technical Monitor)

1999-01-01

Real-time, model-based, deduction has recently emerged as a vital component in AI's tool box for developing highly autonomous reactive systems. Yet one of the current hurdles towards developing model-based reactive systems is the number of methods simultaneously employed, and their corresponding melange of programming and modeling languages. This paper offers an important step towards unification. We introduce RMPL, a rich modeling language that combines probabilistic, constraint-based modeling with reactive programming constructs, while offering a simple semantics in terms of hidden state Markov processes. We introduce probabilistic, hierarchical constraint automata (PHCA), which allow Markov processes to be expressed in a compact representation that preserves the modularity of RMPL programs. Finally, a model-based executive, called Reactive Burton is described that exploits this compact encoding to perform efficIent simulation, belief state update and control sequence generation.

Users guide for information retrieval using APL

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shapiro, A.

1974-01-01

A Programming Language (APL) is a precise, concise, and powerful computer programming language. Several features make APL useful to managers and other potential computer users. APL is interactive; therefore, the user can communicate with his program or data base in near real-time. This, coupled with the fact that APL has excellent debugging features, reduces program checkout time to minutes or hours rather than days or months. Of particular importance is the fact that APL can be utilized as a management science tool using such techniques as operations research, statistical analysis, and forecasting. The gap between the scientist and the manager could be narrowed by showing how APL can be used to do what the scientists and the manager each need to do, retrieve information. Sometimes, the information needs to be retrieved rapidly. In this case APL is ideally suited for this challenge.

Rapid Prototyping of Application Specific Signal Processors (RASSP)

DTIC Science & Technology

1993-12-23

Compilers 2-9 - Cadre Teamwork 2-13 - CodeCenter (Centerline) 2-15 - dbx/dbxtool (UNIXm) 2-17 - Falcon (Mentor) 2-19 - FrameMaker (Frame Tech) 2-21 - gprof...UNIXm C debuggers Falcon Mentor ECAD Framework FrameMaker Frame Tech Word Processing gcc GNU CIC++ compiler gprof GNU Software profiling tool...organization can put their own documentation on-line using the BOLD Com- poser for Framemaker . " The AMPLE programming language is a C like language used for

High-Level Operations in Nonprocedural Programming Languages.

DTIC Science & Technology

1983-12-01

defining type specific operators. Abstract data type has been applied to the nonprocedural language NOPAL [Sang8O]. It was primarily used as a tool...level operation is transformed using the integral operation MATINV as follows: 1 GA IS GROUP, 2 GRA(*) IS GROUP, 3 AUX(*) IS FIELD (DEC FLOAT); I GI...IS GROUP, 2 GRI(*) IS GROUP, 3 INV(*) IS FIELD (DEC FLOAT); AUX = A; GI = MATINV( GA ); C = INV; In code generation, the assertion GI=MATINV( GA ) is

E&V Guidebook, Version 1.1

DTIC Science & Technology

1989-08-15

checklist 14.1] Chapter 3, Language-related issues, extracts from the Ada language reference manua! [,_D 1982] those features exp!icitly a!owcd to vay...welcome. Please send comments electronically (preferred) to szymansk~aja;po.sei.cmu.edu, or by regular mail to Mr. Raymond Szymanski , AFWAL/AAAF, Wright...of Tool Features for the Ada Programming Support Environment (APSE) 4-3 4.3 E&V Report: DoD APSE Analysis 4-4 4.4 Classification Schema/E&V Taxonomy

ASSIST user manual

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnson, Sally C.; Boerschlein, David P.

1995-01-01

Semi-Markov models can be used to analyze the reliability of virtually any fault-tolerant system. However, the process of delineating all the states and transitions in a complex system model can be devastatingly tedious and error prone. The Abstract Semi-Markov Specification Interface to the SURE Tool (ASSIST) computer program allows the user to describe the semi-Markov model in a high-level language. Instead of listing the individual model states, the user specifies the rules governing the behavior of the system, and these are used to generate the model automatically. A few statements in the abstract language can describe a very large, complex model. Because no assumptions are made about the system being modeled, ASSIST can be used to generate models describing the behavior of any system. The ASSIST program and its input language are described and illustrated by examples.

Speech-language pathology program for reading comprehension and orthography: effects on the spelling of dyslexic individuals.

PubMed

Nogueira, Débora Manzano; Cárnio, Maria Silvia

2018-01-01

Purpose Prepare a Speech-language Pathology Program for Reading Comprehension and Orthography and verify its effects on the reading comprehension and spelling of students with Developmental Dyslexia. Methods The study sample was composed of eleven individuals (eight males), diagnosed with Developmental Dyslexia, aged 09-11 years. All participants underwent a Speech-language Pathology Program in Reading Comprehension and Orthography comprising 16 individual weekly sessions. In each session, tasks of reading comprehension of texts and orthography were developed. At the beginning and end of the Program, the participants were submitted to a specific assessment (pre- and post-test). Results The individuals presented difficulty in reading comprehension, but the Cloze technique proved to be a useful remediation tool, and significant improvement in their performance was observed in the post-test evaluation. The dyslexic individuals showed poor performance for their educational level in the spelling assessment. At the end of the program, their performance evolved, but it remained below the expected, showing the same error pattern at the pre- and post-tests, with errors in both natural and arbitrary spelling. Conclusion The proposed Speech-language Pathology Program for Reading Comprehension and Orthography produced positive effects on the reading comprehension, spelling, and motivation to reading and writing of the participants. This study presents an unprecedented contribution by proposing joint stimulation of reading and writing by means of a program easy to apply and analyze in individuals with Developmental Dyslexia.

Developing Healthcare Data Analytics APPs with Open Data Science Tools.

PubMed

Hao, Bibo; Sun, Wen; Yu, Yiqin; Xie, Guotong

2017-01-01

Recent advances in big data analytics provide more flexible, efficient, and open tools for researchers to gain insight from healthcare data. Whilst many tools require researchers to develop programs with programming languages like Python, R and so on, which is not a skill set grasped by many researchers in the healthcare data analytics area. To make data science more approachable, we explored existing tools and developed a practice that can help data scientists convert existing analytics pipelines to user-friendly analytics APPs with rich interactions and features of real-time analysis. With this practice, data scientists can develop customized analytics pipelines as APPs in Jupyter Notebook and disseminate them to other researchers easily, and researchers can benefit from the shared notebook to perform analysis tasks or reproduce research results much more easily.

Advanced software development workstation: Knowledge base methodology: Methodology for first Engineering Script Language (ESL) knowledge base

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Peeris, Kumar; Izygon, Michel

1993-01-01

This report explains some of the concepts of the ESL prototype and summarizes some of the lessons learned in using the prototype for implementing the Flight Mechanics Tool Kit (FMToolKit) series of Ada programs.

Assessing the Success Rate of Students Using a Learning Management System Together with a Collaborative Tool in Web-Based Teaching of Programming Languages

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cavus, Nadire; Ibrahim, Dogan

2007-01-01

The development of collaborative studies in learning has led to a renewed interest in the field of Web-based education. In this experimental study a highly interactive and collaborative virtual teaching environment has been created by supporting Moodle LMS with collaborative learning tool GREWPtool. The aim of this experimental study has been to…

Type Safe Extensible Programming

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chae, Wonseok

2009-10-01

Software products evolve over time. Sometimes they evolve by adding new features, and sometimes by either fixing bugs or replacing outdated implementations with new ones. When software engineers fail to anticipate such evolution during development, they will eventually be forced to re-architect or re-build from scratch. Therefore, it has been common practice to prepare for changes so that software products are extensible over their lifetimes. However, making software extensible is challenging because it is difficult to anticipate successive changes and to provide adequate abstraction mechanisms over potential changes. Such extensibility mechanisms, furthermore, should not compromise any existing functionality during extension. Software engineers would benefit from a tool that provides a way to add extensions in a reliable way. It is natural to expect programming languages to serve this role. Extensible programming is one effort to address these issues. In this thesis, we present type safe extensible programming using the MLPolyR language. MLPolyR is an ML-like functional language whose type system provides type-safe extensibility mechanisms at several levels. After presenting the language, we will show how these extensibility mechanisms can be put to good use in the context of product line engineering. Product line engineering is an emerging software engineering paradigm that aims to manage variations, which originate from successive changes in software.

MHDL CAD tool with fault circuit handling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Espinosa Flores-Verdad, Guillermo; Altamirano Robles, Leopoldo; Osorio Roque, Leticia

2003-04-01

Behavioral modeling and simulation, with Analog Hardware and Mixed Signal Description High Level Languages (MHDLs), have generated the development of diverse simulation tools that allow handling the requirements of the modern designs. These systems have million of transistors embedded and they are radically diverse between them. This tendency of simulation tools is exemplified by the development of languages for modeling and simulation, whose applications are the re-use of complete systems, construction of virtual prototypes, realization of test and synthesis. This paper presents the general architecture of a Mixed Hardware Description Language, based on the standard 1076.1-1999 IEEE VHDL Analog and Mixed-Signal Extensions known as VHDL-AMS. This architecture is novel by consider the modeling and simulation of faults. The main modules of the CAD tool are briefly described in order to establish the information flow and its transformations, starting from the description of a circuit model, going throw the lexical analysis, mathematical models generation and the simulation core, ending at the collection of the circuit behavior as simulation"s data. In addition, the incorporated mechanisms to the simulation core are explained in order to realize the handling of faults into the circuit models. Currently, the CAD tool works with algebraic and differential descriptions for the circuit models, nevertheless the language design is open to be able to handle different model types: Fuzzy Models, Differentials Equations, Transfer Functions and Tables. This applies for fault models too, in this sense the CAD tool considers the inclusion of mutants and saboteurs. To exemplified the results obtained until now, the simulated behavior of a circuit is shown when it is fault free and when it has been modified by the inclusion of a fault as a mutant or a saboteur. The obtained results allow the realization of a virtual diagnosis for mixed circuits. This language works in a UNIX system; it was developed with an object-oriented methodology and programmed in C++.

Problem Solving in a Middle School Robotics Design Classroom

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Norton, Stephen J.; McRobbie, Campbell J.; Ginns, Ian S.

2007-07-01

Little research has been conducted on how students work when they are required to plan, build and evaluate artefacts in technology rich learning environments such as those supported by tools including flow charts, Labview programming and Lego construction. In this study, activity theory was used as an analytic tool to examine the social construction of meaning. There was a focus on the effect of teachers’ goals and the rules they enacted upon student use of the flow chart planning tool, and the tools of the programming language Labview and Lego construction. It was found that the articulation of a teacher’s goals via rules and divisions of labour helped to form distinct communities of learning and influenced the development of different problem solving strategies. The use of the planning tool flow charting was associated with continuity of approach, integration of problem solutions including appreciation of the nexus between construction and programming, and greater educational transformation. Students who flow charted defined problems in a more holistic way and demonstrated more methodical, insightful and integrated approaches to their use of tools. The findings have implications for teaching in design dominated learning environments.

The Effectiveness of Using Learning Management Systems and Collaborative Tool in Web-Based Teaching of Programming Languages

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cavus, Nadire; Uzunboylu, Huseyin; Ibrahim, Dogan

2006-01-01

This paper is about a pilot study which has been carried out at the Near East University during the 2004/5 Fall Semester using the Moodle LMS [learning management system] together with GREWPtool collaborative editor. The system has been tested with 36 students taking the Java and the Pascal programming courses. The results of the pilot study…

Design of a Pictorial Program Reference Language.

DTIC Science & Technology

1984-08-01

be fixed during the typing process. If the manuscript is given to an English teacher moonlighting as a typist, the IThe effort and expense involved in...objects with stereotyped pur- these programming cliches automatically. In the poses. These are called typical programming pat- second method, the user uses...fixed. If you gave it to alm options found in many tools today. Modeling large 0 K.glmi m teacher moonlighting as a typiA, you bodies of facts and

Dairy Tool Box Talks: A Comprehensive Worker Training in Dairy Farming.

PubMed

Rovai, Maristela; Carroll, Heidi; Foos, Rebecca; Erickson, Tracey; Garcia, Alvaro

2016-01-01

Today's dairies are growing rapidly, with increasing dependence on Latino immigrant workers. This requires new educational strategies for improving milk quality and introduction to state-of-the-art dairy farming practices. It also creates knowledge gaps pertaining to the health of animals and workers, mainly due to the lack of time and language barriers. Owners, managers, and herdsmen assign training duties to more experienced employees, which may not promote "best practices" and may perpetuate bad habits. A comprehensive and periodic training program administered by qualified personnel is currently needed and will enhance the sustainability of the dairy industry. Strategic management and employee satisfaction will be achieved through proper training in the employee's language, typically Spanish. The training needs to address not only current industry standards but also social and cultural differences. An innovative training course was developed following the same structure used by the engineering and construction industries, giving farm workers basic understanding of animal care and handling, cow comfort, and personal safety. The "Dairy Tool Box Talks" program was conducted over a 10-week period with nine sessions according to farm's various employee work shifts. Bulk milk bacterial counts and somatic cell counts were used to evaluate milk quality on the three dairy farms participating in the program. "Dairy Tool Box Talks" resulted in a general sense of employee satisfaction, significant learning outcomes, and enthusiasm about the topics covered. We conclude this article by highlighting the importance of educational programs aimed at improving overall cross-cultural training.

[Formian 2 and a Formian Function for Processing Polyhedric Configurations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nooshin, H.; Disney, P. L.; Champion, O. C.

1996-01-01

The work began in October 1994 with the following objectives: (1) to produce an improved version of the programming language Formian; and (2) to create a means for computer aided handling of polyhedric configurations including the geodesic forms of all kinds. A new version of Formian, referred to as Formian 2, is being implemented to operate in the Windows 95 environment. It is an ideal tool for configuration management in a convenient and user-friendly manner. The second objective was achieved by creating a standard Formian function that allows convenient handling of all types of polyhedric configurations. In particular, the focus of attention is on polyhedric configurations that are of importance in architectural and structural engineering fields. The natural medium for processing of polyhedric configurations is a programming language that incorporates the concepts of 'formex algebra'. Formian is such a programming language in which the processing of polyhedric configurations can be carried out using the standard elements of the language. A description of this function is included in a chapter for a book entitled 'Beyond the Cube: the Architecture of space Frames and Polyhedra'. A copy of this chapter is appended.

The Implementation of a Multi-Backend Database System (MDBS). Part I. Software Engineering Strategies and Efforts Towards a Prototype MDBS.

DTIC Science & Technology

1983-06-01

for DEC PDPll systems. MAINSAIL was developed and is marketed with a set of integrated tools for program development. The syntax of the language is...stack, and to test for stack-full and stack-empty conditions. This technique is useful in enforcing data integrity and in con- trolling concurrent...and market MAINSAIL. The language is distinguished by its portability. The same compiler and runtime system, both written in MAINSAIL, are the basis

Use of Unified Modeling Language (UML) in Model-Based Development (MBD) For Safety-Critical Applications

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-12-01

appears that UML is becoming the de facto MBD language. OMG® states the following on the MDA® FAQ page: “Although not formally required [for MBD], UML...a known limitation [42], so UML users should plan accordingly, especially for safety-critical programs. For example, “models are not used to...description of the MBD tool chain can be produced. That description could be resident in a Plan for Software Aspects of Certification (PSAC) or Software

MIA - A free and open source software for gray scale medical image analysis

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Gray scale images make the bulk of data in bio-medical image analysis, and hence, the main focus of many image processing tasks lies in the processing of these monochrome images. With ever improving acquisition devices, spatial and temporal image resolution increases, and data sets become very large. Various image processing frameworks exists that make the development of new algorithms easy by using high level programming languages or visual programming. These frameworks are also accessable to researchers that have no background or little in software development because they take care of otherwise complex tasks. Specifically, the management of working memory is taken care of automatically, usually at the price of requiring more it. As a result, processing large data sets with these tools becomes increasingly difficult on work station class computers. One alternative to using these high level processing tools is the development of new algorithms in a languages like C++, that gives the developer full control over how memory is handled, but the resulting workflow for the prototyping of new algorithms is rather time intensive, and also not appropriate for a researcher with little or no knowledge in software development. Another alternative is in using command line tools that run image processing tasks, use the hard disk to store intermediate results, and provide automation by using shell scripts. Although not as convenient as, e.g. visual programming, this approach is still accessable to researchers without a background in computer science. However, only few tools exist that provide this kind of processing interface, they are usually quite task specific, and don’t provide an clear approach when one wants to shape a new command line tool from a prototype shell script. Results The proposed framework, MIA, provides a combination of command line tools, plug-ins, and libraries that make it possible to run image processing tasks interactively in a command shell and to prototype by using the according shell scripting language. Since the hard disk becomes the temporal storage memory management is usually a non-issue in the prototyping phase. By using string-based descriptions for filters, optimizers, and the likes, the transition from shell scripts to full fledged programs implemented in C++ is also made easy. In addition, its design based on atomic plug-ins and single tasks command line tools makes it easy to extend MIA, usually without the requirement to touch or recompile existing code. Conclusion In this article, we describe the general design of MIA, a general purpouse framework for gray scale image processing. We demonstrated the applicability of the software with example applications from three different research scenarios, namely motion compensation in myocardial perfusion imaging, the processing of high resolution image data that arises in virtual anthropology, and retrospective analysis of treatment outcome in orthognathic surgery. With MIA prototyping algorithms by using shell scripts that combine small, single-task command line tools is a viable alternative to the use of high level languages, an approach that is especially useful when large data sets need to be processed. PMID:24119305

MIA - A free and open source software for gray scale medical image analysis.

PubMed

Wollny, Gert; Kellman, Peter; Ledesma-Carbayo, María-Jesus; Skinner, Matthew M; Hublin, Jean-Jaques; Hierl, Thomas

2013-10-11

Gray scale images make the bulk of data in bio-medical image analysis, and hence, the main focus of many image processing tasks lies in the processing of these monochrome images. With ever improving acquisition devices, spatial and temporal image resolution increases, and data sets become very large.Various image processing frameworks exists that make the development of new algorithms easy by using high level programming languages or visual programming. These frameworks are also accessable to researchers that have no background or little in software development because they take care of otherwise complex tasks. Specifically, the management of working memory is taken care of automatically, usually at the price of requiring more it. As a result, processing large data sets with these tools becomes increasingly difficult on work station class computers.One alternative to using these high level processing tools is the development of new algorithms in a languages like C++, that gives the developer full control over how memory is handled, but the resulting workflow for the prototyping of new algorithms is rather time intensive, and also not appropriate for a researcher with little or no knowledge in software development.Another alternative is in using command line tools that run image processing tasks, use the hard disk to store intermediate results, and provide automation by using shell scripts. Although not as convenient as, e.g. visual programming, this approach is still accessable to researchers without a background in computer science. However, only few tools exist that provide this kind of processing interface, they are usually quite task specific, and don't provide an clear approach when one wants to shape a new command line tool from a prototype shell script. The proposed framework, MIA, provides a combination of command line tools, plug-ins, and libraries that make it possible to run image processing tasks interactively in a command shell and to prototype by using the according shell scripting language. Since the hard disk becomes the temporal storage memory management is usually a non-issue in the prototyping phase. By using string-based descriptions for filters, optimizers, and the likes, the transition from shell scripts to full fledged programs implemented in C++ is also made easy. In addition, its design based on atomic plug-ins and single tasks command line tools makes it easy to extend MIA, usually without the requirement to touch or recompile existing code. In this article, we describe the general design of MIA, a general purpouse framework for gray scale image processing. We demonstrated the applicability of the software with example applications from three different research scenarios, namely motion compensation in myocardial perfusion imaging, the processing of high resolution image data that arises in virtual anthropology, and retrospective analysis of treatment outcome in orthognathic surgery. With MIA prototyping algorithms by using shell scripts that combine small, single-task command line tools is a viable alternative to the use of high level languages, an approach that is especially useful when large data sets need to be processed.

Performing statistical analyses on quantitative data in Taverna workflows: an example using R and maxdBrowse to identify differentially-expressed genes from microarray data.

PubMed

Li, Peter; Castrillo, Juan I; Velarde, Giles; Wassink, Ingo; Soiland-Reyes, Stian; Owen, Stuart; Withers, David; Oinn, Tom; Pocock, Matthew R; Goble, Carole A; Oliver, Stephen G; Kell, Douglas B

2008-08-07

There has been a dramatic increase in the amount of quantitative data derived from the measurement of changes at different levels of biological complexity during the post-genomic era. However, there are a number of issues associated with the use of computational tools employed for the analysis of such data. For example, computational tools such as R and MATLAB require prior knowledge of their programming languages in order to implement statistical analyses on data. Combining two or more tools in an analysis may also be problematic since data may have to be manually copied and pasted between separate user interfaces for each tool. Furthermore, this transfer of data may require a reconciliation step in order for there to be interoperability between computational tools. Developments in the Taverna workflow system have enabled pipelines to be constructed and enacted for generic and ad hoc analyses of quantitative data. Here, we present an example of such a workflow involving the statistical identification of differentially-expressed genes from microarray data followed by the annotation of their relationships to cellular processes. This workflow makes use of customised maxdBrowse web services, a system that allows Taverna to query and retrieve gene expression data from the maxdLoad2 microarray database. These data are then analysed by R to identify differentially-expressed genes using the Taverna RShell processor which has been developed for invoking this tool when it has been deployed as a service using the RServe library. In addition, the workflow uses Beanshell scripts to reconcile mismatches of data between services as well as to implement a form of user interaction for selecting subsets of microarray data for analysis as part of the workflow execution. A new plugin system in the Taverna software architecture is demonstrated by the use of renderers for displaying PDF files and CSV formatted data within the Taverna workbench. Taverna can be used by data analysis experts as a generic tool for composing ad hoc analyses of quantitative data by combining the use of scripts written in the R programming language with tools exposed as services in workflows. When these workflows are shared with colleagues and the wider scientific community, they provide an approach for other scientists wanting to use tools such as R without having to learn the corresponding programming language to analyse their own data.

Performing statistical analyses on quantitative data in Taverna workflows: An example using R and maxdBrowse to identify differentially-expressed genes from microarray data

PubMed Central

Li, Peter; Castrillo, Juan I; Velarde, Giles; Wassink, Ingo; Soiland-Reyes, Stian; Owen, Stuart; Withers, David; Oinn, Tom; Pocock, Matthew R; Goble, Carole A; Oliver, Stephen G; Kell, Douglas B

2008-01-01

Background There has been a dramatic increase in the amount of quantitative data derived from the measurement of changes at different levels of biological complexity during the post-genomic era. However, there are a number of issues associated with the use of computational tools employed for the analysis of such data. For example, computational tools such as R and MATLAB require prior knowledge of their programming languages in order to implement statistical analyses on data. Combining two or more tools in an analysis may also be problematic since data may have to be manually copied and pasted between separate user interfaces for each tool. Furthermore, this transfer of data may require a reconciliation step in order for there to be interoperability between computational tools. Results Developments in the Taverna workflow system have enabled pipelines to be constructed and enacted for generic and ad hoc analyses of quantitative data. Here, we present an example of such a workflow involving the statistical identification of differentially-expressed genes from microarray data followed by the annotation of their relationships to cellular processes. This workflow makes use of customised maxdBrowse web services, a system that allows Taverna to query and retrieve gene expression data from the maxdLoad2 microarray database. These data are then analysed by R to identify differentially-expressed genes using the Taverna RShell processor which has been developed for invoking this tool when it has been deployed as a service using the RServe library. In addition, the workflow uses Beanshell scripts to reconcile mismatches of data between services as well as to implement a form of user interaction for selecting subsets of microarray data for analysis as part of the workflow execution. A new plugin system in the Taverna software architecture is demonstrated by the use of renderers for displaying PDF files and CSV formatted data within the Taverna workbench. Conclusion Taverna can be used by data analysis experts as a generic tool for composing ad hoc analyses of quantitative data by combining the use of scripts written in the R programming language with tools exposed as services in workflows. When these workflows are shared with colleagues and the wider scientific community, they provide an approach for other scientists wanting to use tools such as R without having to learn the corresponding programming language to analyse their own data. PMID:18687127

International Education Opportunities during the IHY: Bridging the Geographic, Cultural and Linguistic Divide between Participating IHY Nations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Thompson, B.J.; Morrow, C.A.; Rabello-Soares, M.C.; Smith, R.W.

2006-01-01

Currently there are over 70 U.N. Member States participating in the International Heliophysical Year (IHY 2007- 8), and most of these nations do not use English as their primary language. The IHY contains four main program elements: Science, Observatory Development, Outreach, and History. For these elements to be successful, each requires successful communication within and adaptation for the individual member states. The IHY Outreach program contains many educational activities targeting a wide range of languages and contexts. The other three program elements, however, offer a means to extend the impact of the educational programs and reinforce educational activities. IHY's scientific activities involve partnerships with institutions and observatories, many of which have outreach activities in their local communities. Scientists and participation programs from around the world have begun translating materials into their local languages and adapting educational tools for use in their communities. IHY's Observatory Development program, which began deploying instrumentation worldwide in 2004, encourages a strong educational component to each new observatory site as a means of ensuring long-lasting viability of the research program. The history program gathers important information and educates the public about the development of space science. This presentation will discuss efforts occurring within the IHY program that support cross-cultural communication and education and present opportunities to reach new audiences.

International Education Opportunities During the IHY: Bridging the Geographic, Cultural and Linguistic Divide Between Participating IHY Nations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thompson, B. J.; Morrow, C. A.; Rabello-Soares, M. C.; Smith, R. W.

2006-12-01

Currently there are over 70 U.N. Member States participating in the International Heliophysical Year (IHY 2007- 8), and most of these nations do not use English as their primary language. The IHY contains four main program elements: Science, Observatory Development, Outreach, and History. For these elements to be successful, each requires successful communication within and adaptation for the individual member states. The IHY Outreach program contains many educational activities targetting a wide range of languages and contexts. The other three program elements, however, offer a means to extend the impact of the educational programs and reinforce educational activities. IHY's scientific activities involve partnerships with institutions and observatories, many of which have outreach activities in their local communities. Scientists and participation programs from around the world have begun translating materials into their local languages and adapting educational tools for use in their communities. IHY's Observatory Development program, which began deploying instrumentation worldwide in 2004, encourages a strong educational component to each new observatory site as a means of ensuring long-lasting viability of the research program. The history program gathers important information and educates the public about the development of space science. This presentation will discuss efforts occurring within the IHY program that support cross-cultural communication and education and present opportunities to reach new audiences.

Expanding the KATE toolbox

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Thomas, Stan J.

1993-01-01

KATE (Knowledge-based Autonomous Test Engineer) is a model-based software system developed in the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Kennedy Space Center for monitoring, fault detection, and control of launch vehicles and ground support systems. In order to bring KATE to the level of performance, functionality, and integratability needed for firing room applications, efforts are underway to implement KATE in the C++ programming language using an X-windows interface. Two programs which were designed and added to the collection of tools which comprise the KATE toolbox are described. The first tool, called the schematic viewer, gives the KATE user the capability to view digitized schematic drawings in the KATE environment. The second tool, called the model editor, gives the KATE model builder a tool for creating and editing knowledge base files. Design and implementation issues having to do with these two tools are discussed. It will be useful to anyone maintaining or extending either the schematic viewer or the model editor.

Collaboratively Conceived, Designed and Implemented: Matching Visualization Tools with Geoscience Data Collections and Geoscience Data Collections with Visualization Tools via the ToolMatch Service.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hoebelheinrich, N. J.; Lynnes, C.; West, P.; Ferritto, M.

2014-12-01

Two problems common to many geoscience domains are the difficulties in finding tools to work with a given dataset collection, and conversely, the difficulties in finding data for a known tool. A collaborative team from the Earth Science Information Partnership (ESIP) has gotten together to design and create a web service, called ToolMatch, to address these problems. The team began their efforts by defining an initial, relatively simple conceptual model that addressed the two uses cases briefly described above. The conceptual model is expressed as an ontology using OWL (Web Ontology Language) and DCterms (Dublin Core Terms), and utilizing standard ontologies such as DOAP (Description of a Project), FOAF (Friend of a Friend), SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System) and DCAT (Data Catalog Vocabulary). The ToolMatch service will be taking advantage of various Semantic Web and Web standards, such as OpenSearch, RESTful web services, SWRL (Semantic Web Rule Language) and SPARQL (Simple Protocol and RDF Query Language). The first version of the ToolMatch service was deployed in early fall 2014. While more complete testing is required, a number of communities besides ESIP member organizations have expressed interest in collaborating to create, test and use the service and incorporate it into their own web pages, tools and / or services including the USGS Data Catalog service, DataONE, the Deep Carbon Observatory, Virtual Solar Terrestrial Observatory (VSTO), and the U.S. Global Change Research Program. In this session, presenters will discuss the inception and development of the ToolMatch service, the collaborative process used to design, refine, and test the service, and future plans for the service.

Trends in Programming Languages for Neuroscience Simulations

PubMed Central

Davison, Andrew P.; Hines, Michael L.; Muller, Eilif

2009-01-01

Neuroscience simulators allow scientists to express models in terms of biological concepts, without having to concern themselves with low-level computational details of their implementation. The expressiveness, power and ease-of-use of the simulator interface is critical in efficiently and accurately translating ideas into a working simulation. We review long-term trends in the development of programmable simulator interfaces, and examine the benefits of moving from proprietary, domain-specific languages to modern dynamic general-purpose languages, in particular Python, which provide neuroscientists with an interactive and expressive simulation development environment and easy access to state-of-the-art general-purpose tools for scientific computing. PMID:20198154

Trends in programming languages for neuroscience simulations.

PubMed

Davison, Andrew P; Hines, Michael L; Muller, Eilif

2009-01-01

Neuroscience simulators allow scientists to express models in terms of biological concepts, without having to concern themselves with low-level computational details of their implementation. The expressiveness, power and ease-of-use of the simulator interface is critical in efficiently and accurately translating ideas into a working simulation. We review long-term trends in the development of programmable simulator interfaces, and examine the benefits of moving from proprietary, domain-specific languages to modern dynamic general-purpose languages, in particular Python, which provide neuroscientists with an interactive and expressive simulation development environment and easy access to state-of-the-art general-purpose tools for scientific computing.

SAGA: A project to automate the management of software production systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Campbell, Roy H.; Beckman, Carol S.; Benzinger, Leonora; Beshers, George; Hammerslag, David; Kimball, John; Kirslis, Peter A.; Render, Hal; Richards, Paul; Terwilliger, Robert

1985-01-01

The SAGA system is a software environment that is designed to support most of the software development activities that occur in a software lifecycle. The system can be configured to support specific software development applications using given programming languages, tools, and methodologies. Meta-tools are provided to ease configuration. The SAGA system consists of a small number of software components that are adapted by the meta-tools into specific tools for use in the software development application. The modules are design so that the meta-tools can construct an environment which is both integrated and flexible. The SAGA project is documented in several papers which are presented.

NASA Access Mechanism - Graphical user interface information retrieval system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hunter, Judy F.; Generous, Curtis; Duncan, Denise

1993-01-01

Access to online information sources of aerospace, scientific, and engineering data, a mission focus for NASA's Scientific and Technical Information Program, has always been limited by factors such as telecommunications, query language syntax, lack of standardization in the information, and the lack of adequate tools to assist in searching. Today, the NASA STI Program's NASA Access Mechanism (NAM) prototype offers a solution to these problems by providing the user with a set of tools that provide a graphical interface to remote, heterogeneous, and distributed information in a manner adaptable to both casual and expert users. Additionally, the NAM provides access to many Internet-based services such as Electronic Mail, the Wide Area Information Servers system, Peer Locating tools, and electronic bulletin boards.

NASA access mechanism: Graphical user interface information retrieval system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hunter, Judy; Generous, Curtis; Duncan, Denise

1993-01-01

Access to online information sources of aerospace, scientific, and engineering data, a mission focus for NASA's Scientific and Technical Information Program, has always been limited to factors such as telecommunications, query language syntax, lack of standardization in the information, and the lack of adequate tools to assist in searching. Today, the NASA STI Program's NASA Access Mechanism (NAM) prototype offers a solution to these problems by providing the user with a set of tools that provide a graphical interface to remote, heterogeneous, and distributed information in a manner adaptable to both casual and expert users. Additionally, the NAM provides access to many Internet-based services such as Electronic Mail, the Wide Area Information Servers system, Peer Locating tools, and electronic bulletin boards.

From Verified Models to Verifiable Code

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lensink, Leonard; Munoz, Cesar A.; Goodloe, Alwyn E.

2009-01-01

Declarative specifications of digital systems often contain parts that can be automatically translated into executable code. Automated code generation may reduce or eliminate the kinds of errors typically introduced through manual code writing. For this approach to be effective, the generated code should be reasonably efficient and, more importantly, verifiable. This paper presents a prototype code generator for the Prototype Verification System (PVS) that translates a subset of PVS functional specifications into an intermediate language and subsequently to multiple target programming languages. Several case studies are presented to illustrate the tool's functionality. The generated code can be analyzed by software verification tools such as verification condition generators, static analyzers, and software model-checkers to increase the confidence that the generated code is correct.

Standards-Based Procedural Phenotyping: The Arden Syntax on i2b2.

PubMed

Mate, Sebastian; Castellanos, Ixchel; Ganslandt, Thomas; Prokosch, Hans-Ulrich; Kraus, Stefan

2017-01-01

Phenotyping, or the identification of patient cohorts, is a recurring challenge in medical informatics. While there are open source tools such as i2b2 that address this problem by providing user-friendly querying interfaces, these platforms lack semantic expressiveness to model complex phenotyping algorithms. The Arden Syntax provides procedural programming language construct, designed specifically for medical decision support and knowledge transfer. In this work, we investigate how language constructs of the Arden Syntax can be used for generic phenotyping. We implemented a prototypical tool to integrate i2b2 with an open source Arden execution environment. To demonstrate the applicability of our approach, we used the tool together with an Arden-based phenotyping algorithm to derive statistics about ICU-acquired hypernatremia. Finally, we discuss how the combination of i2b2's user-friendly cohort pre-selection and Arden's procedural expressiveness could benefit phenotyping.

ASSIST - THE ABSTRACT SEMI-MARKOV SPECIFICATION INTERFACE TO THE SURE TOOL PROGRAM (SUN VERSION)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnson, S. C.

1994-01-01

ASSIST, the Abstract Semi-Markov Specification Interface to the SURE Tool program, is an interface that will enable reliability engineers to accurately design large semi-Markov models. The user describes the failure behavior of a fault-tolerant computer system in an abstract, high-level language. The ASSIST program then automatically generates a corresponding semi-Markov model. The abstract language allows efficient description of large, complex systems; a one-page ASSIST-language description may result in a semi-Markov model with thousands of states and transitions. The ASSIST program also includes model-reduction techniques to facilitate efficient modeling of large systems. Instead of listing the individual states of the Markov model, reliability engineers can specify the rules governing the behavior of a system, and these are used to automatically generate the model. ASSIST reads an input file describing the failure behavior of a system in an abstract language and generates a Markov model in the format needed for input to SURE, the semi-Markov Unreliability Range Evaluator program, and PAWS/STEM, the Pade Approximation with Scaling program and Scaled Taylor Exponential Matrix. A Markov model consists of a number of system states and transitions between them. Each state in the model represents a possible state of the system in terms of which components have failed, which ones have been removed, etc. Within ASSIST, each state is defined by a state vector, where each element of the vector takes on an integer value within a defined range. An element can represent any meaningful characteristic, such as the number of working components of one type in the system, or the number of faulty components of another type in use. Statements representing transitions between states in the model have three parts: a condition expression, a destination expression, and a rate expression. The first expression is a Boolean expression describing the state space variable values of states for which the transition is valid. The second expression defines the destination state for the transition in terms of state space variable values. The third expression defines the distribution of elapsed time for the transition. The mathematical approach chosen to solve a reliability problem may vary with the size and nature of the problem. Although different solution techniques are utilized on different programs, it is possible to have a common input language. The Systems Validation Methods group at NASA Langley Research Center has created a set of programs that form the basis for a reliability analysis workstation. The set of programs are: SURE reliability analysis program (COSMIC program LAR-13789, LAR-14921); the ASSIST specification interface program (LAR-14193, LAR-14923), PAWS/STEM reliability analysis programs (LAR-14165, LAR-14920); and the FTC fault tree tool (LAR-14586, LAR-14922). FTC is used to calculate the top-event probability for a fault tree. PAWS/STEM and SURE are programs which interpret the same SURE language, but utilize different solution methods. ASSIST is a preprocessor that generates SURE language from a more abstract definition. SURE, ASSIST, and PAWS/STEM are also offered as a bundle. Please see the abstract for COS-10039/COS-10041, SARA - SURE/ASSIST Reliability Analysis Workstation, for pricing details. ASSIST was originally developed for DEC VAX series computers running VMS and was later ported for use on Sun computers running SunOS. The VMS version (LAR14193) is written in C-language and can be compiled with the VAX C compiler. The standard distribution medium for the VMS version of ASSIST is a 9-track 1600 BPI magnetic tape in VMSINSTAL format. It is also available on a TK50 tape cartridge in VMSINSTAL format. Executables are included. The Sun version (LAR14923) is written in ANSI C-language. An ANSI compliant C compiler is required in order to compile this package. The standard distribution medium for the Sun version of ASSIST is a .25 inch streaming magnetic tape cartridge in UNIX tar format. Both Sun3 and Sun4 executables are included. Electronic copies of the documentation in PostScript, TeX, and DVI formats are provided on the distribution medium. (The VMS distribution lacks the .DVI format files, however.) ASSIST was developed in 1986 and last updated in 1992. DEC, VAX, VMS, and TK50 are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation. SunOS, Sun3, and Sun4 are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T Bell Laboratories.

ASSIST - THE ABSTRACT SEMI-MARKOV SPECIFICATION INTERFACE TO THE SURE TOOL PROGRAM (VAX VMS VERSION)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnson, S. C.

1994-01-01

ASSIST, the Abstract Semi-Markov Specification Interface to the SURE Tool program, is an interface that will enable reliability engineers to accurately design large semi-Markov models. The user describes the failure behavior of a fault-tolerant computer system in an abstract, high-level language. The ASSIST program then automatically generates a corresponding semi-Markov model. The abstract language allows efficient description of large, complex systems; a one-page ASSIST-language description may result in a semi-Markov model with thousands of states and transitions. The ASSIST program also includes model-reduction techniques to facilitate efficient modeling of large systems. Instead of listing the individual states of the Markov model, reliability engineers can specify the rules governing the behavior of a system, and these are used to automatically generate the model. ASSIST reads an input file describing the failure behavior of a system in an abstract language and generates a Markov model in the format needed for input to SURE, the semi-Markov Unreliability Range Evaluator program, and PAWS/STEM, the Pade Approximation with Scaling program and Scaled Taylor Exponential Matrix. A Markov model consists of a number of system states and transitions between them. Each state in the model represents a possible state of the system in terms of which components have failed, which ones have been removed, etc. Within ASSIST, each state is defined by a state vector, where each element of the vector takes on an integer value within a defined range. An element can represent any meaningful characteristic, such as the number of working components of one type in the system, or the number of faulty components of another type in use. Statements representing transitions between states in the model have three parts: a condition expression, a destination expression, and a rate expression. The first expression is a Boolean expression describing the state space variable values of states for which the transition is valid. The second expression defines the destination state for the transition in terms of state space variable values. The third expression defines the distribution of elapsed time for the transition. The mathematical approach chosen to solve a reliability problem may vary with the size and nature of the problem. Although different solution techniques are utilized on different programs, it is possible to have a common input language. The Systems Validation Methods group at NASA Langley Research Center has created a set of programs that form the basis for a reliability analysis workstation. The set of programs are: SURE reliability analysis program (COSMIC program LAR-13789, LAR-14921); the ASSIST specification interface program (LAR-14193, LAR-14923), PAWS/STEM reliability analysis programs (LAR-14165, LAR-14920); and the FTC fault tree tool (LAR-14586, LAR-14922). FTC is used to calculate the top-event probability for a fault tree. PAWS/STEM and SURE are programs which interpret the same SURE language, but utilize different solution methods. ASSIST is a preprocessor that generates SURE language from a more abstract definition. SURE, ASSIST, and PAWS/STEM are also offered as a bundle. Please see the abstract for COS-10039/COS-10041, SARA - SURE/ASSIST Reliability Analysis Workstation, for pricing details. ASSIST was originally developed for DEC VAX series computers running VMS and was later ported for use on Sun computers running SunOS. The VMS version (LAR14193) is written in C-language and can be compiled with the VAX C compiler. The standard distribution medium for the VMS version of ASSIST is a 9-track 1600 BPI magnetic tape in VMSINSTAL format. It is also available on a TK50 tape cartridge in VMSINSTAL format. Executables are included. The Sun version (LAR14923) is written in ANSI C-language. An ANSI compliant C compiler is required in order to compile this package. The standard distribution medium for the Sun version of ASSIST is a .25 inch streaming magnetic tape cartridge in UNIX tar format. Both Sun3 and Sun4 executables are included. Electronic copies of the documentation in PostScript, TeX, and DVI formats are provided on the distribution medium. (The VMS distribution lacks the .DVI format files, however.) ASSIST was developed in 1986 and last updated in 1992. DEC, VAX, VMS, and TK50 are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation. SunOS, Sun3, and Sun4 are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T Bell Laboratories.

GSFC Ada programming guidelines

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Roy, Daniel M.; Nelson, Robert W.

1986-01-01

A significant Ada effort has been under way at Goddard for the last two years. To ease the center's transition toward Ada (notably for future space station projects), a cooperative effort of half a dozen companies and NASA personnel was started in 1985 to produce programming standards and guidelines for the Ada language. The great richness of the Ada language and the need of programmers for good style examples makes Ada programming guidelines an important tool to smooth the Ada transition. Because of the natural divergence of technical opinions, the great diversity of our government and private organizations and the novelty of the Ada technology, the creation of an Ada programming guidelines document is a difficult and time consuming task. It is also a vital one. Steps must now be taken to ensure that the guide is refined in an organized but timely manner to reflect the growing level of expertise of the Ada community.

A Simplified Shuttle Payload Thermal Analyzer /SSPTA/ program

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bartoszek, J. T.; Huckins, B.; Coyle, M.

1979-01-01

A simple thermal analysis program for Space Shuttle payloads has been developed to accommodate the user who requires an easily understood but dependable analytical tool. The thermal analysis program includes several thermal subprograms traditionally employed in spacecraft thermal studies, a data management system for data generated by the subprograms, and a master program to coordinate the data files and thermal subprograms. The language and logic used to run the thermal analysis program are designed for the small user. In addition, analytical and storage techniques which conserve computer time and minimize core requirements are incorporated into the program.

A CLIPS-based tool for aircraft pilot-vehicle interface design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fowler, Thomas D.; Rogers, Steven P.

1991-01-01

The Pilot-Vehicle Interface of modern aircraft is the cognitive, sensory, and psychomotor link between the pilot, the avionics modules, and all other systems on board the aircraft. To assist pilot-vehicle interface designers, a C Language Integrated Production System (CLIPS) based tool was developed that allows design information to be stored in a table that can be modified by rules representing design knowledge. Developed for the Apple Macintosh, the tool allows users without any CLIPS programming experience to form simple rules using a point and click interface.

OSATE Overview & Community Updates

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-02-15

update 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR(S) Delange /Julien 5d. PROJECT NUMBER 5e. TASK NUMBER 5f. WORK...main language capabilities Modeling patterns & model samples for beginners Error-Model examples EMV2 model constructs Demonstration of tools Case

Tools for Testing Denotational Semantic Definitions of Programming Languages.

DTIC Science & Technology

1983-05-01

16. DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT (of this Report) This document is approved for public release and sale : distribution is unlimited. 17. DISTRIBUTION...decl Itun ...type_deci prodjtype_decl sumjype..decl Iseq .. type..deci I pkgspec I pkg...body I use..clause type...decl: (TDECL typejid type..def

When Push comes to Shove and Much More: Spring Internet World '97.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Healy, Helen; Rolls, Linda

1997-01-01

Covers the five keynote addresses as well as three program presentations delivered at the Spring Internet World (1997) conference in Los Angeles. Highlights exhibited products (offline browsers and tools, push technology and foreign-language applications), online financial services and miscellaneous networks. (AEF)

Technology Focus: Enhancing Conceptual Knowledge of Linear Programming with a Flash Tool

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Garofalo, Joe; Cory, Beth

2007-01-01

Mathematical knowledge can be categorized in different ways. One commonly used way is to distinguish between procedural mathematical knowledge and conceptual mathematical knowledge. Procedural knowledge of mathematics refers to formal language, symbols, algorithms, and rules. Conceptual knowledge is essential for meaningful understanding of…

An Evaluator of the Future.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hargreaves, William; Attkisson, C. Clifford

1978-01-01

For the evaluator, future expectations will be more demanding than at present. Operating staff, managers, and funders will be familiar with the program evaluation. Improved information tools will help by keeping the organization visible and manageable. A more fundamental change will be an improved "language of accountability." (Author/CTM)

MLP Tools: a PyMOL plugin for using the molecular lipophilicity potential in computer-aided drug design

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Oberhauser, Nils; Nurisso, Alessandra; Carrupt, Pierre-Alain

2014-05-01

The molecular lipophilicity potential (MLP) is a well-established method to calculate and visualize lipophilicity on molecules. We are here introducing a new computational tool named MLP Tools, written in the programming language Python, and conceived as a free plugin for the popular open source molecular viewer PyMOL. The plugin is divided into several sub-programs which allow the visualization of the MLP on molecular surfaces, as well as in three-dimensional space in order to analyze lipophilic properties of binding pockets. The sub-program Log MLP also implements the virtual log P which allows the prediction of the octanol/water partition coefficients on multiple three-dimensional conformations of the same molecule. An implementation on the recently introduced MLP GOLD procedure, improving the GOLD docking performance in hydrophobic pockets, is also part of the plugin. In this article, all functions of the MLP Tools will be described through a few chosen examples.

Engineering and Scientific Applications: Using MatLab(Registered Trademark) for Data Processing and Visualization

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sen, Syamal K.; Shaykhian, Gholam Ali

2011-01-01

MatLab(TradeMark)(MATrix LABoratory) is a numerical computation and simulation tool that is used by thousands Scientists and Engineers in many countries. MatLab does purely numerical calculations, which can be used as a glorified calculator or interpreter programming language; its real strength is in matrix manipulations. Computer algebra functionalities are achieved within the MatLab environment using "symbolic" toolbox. This feature is similar to computer algebra programs, provided by Maple or Mathematica to calculate with mathematical equations using symbolic operations. MatLab in its interpreter programming language form (command interface) is similar with well known programming languages such as C/C++, support data structures and cell arrays to define classes in object oriented programming. As such, MatLab is equipped with most of the essential constructs of a higher programming language. MatLab is packaged with an editor and debugging functionality useful to perform analysis of large MatLab programs and find errors. We believe there are many ways to approach real-world problems; prescribed methods to ensure foregoing solutions are incorporated in design and analysis of data processing and visualization can benefit engineers and scientist in gaining wider insight in actual implementation of their perspective experiments. This presentation will focus on data processing and visualizations aspects of engineering and scientific applications. Specifically, it will discuss methods and techniques to perform intermediate-level data processing covering engineering and scientific problems. MatLab programming techniques including reading various data files formats to produce customized publication-quality graphics, importing engineering and/or scientific data, organizing data in tabular format, exporting data to be used by other software programs such as Microsoft Excel, data presentation and visualization will be discussed.

Software for Real-Time Analysis of Subsonic Test Shot Accuracy

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-03-01

used the C++ programming language, the Open Source Computer Vision ( OpenCV ®) software library, and Microsoft Windows® Application Programming...video for comparison through OpenCV image analysis tools. Based on the comparison, the software then computed the coordinates of each shot relative to...DWB researchers wanted to use the Open Source Computer Vision ( OpenCV ) software library for capturing and analyzing frames of video. OpenCV contains

Fault-Tree Compiler Program

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Butler, Ricky W.; Martensen, Anna L.

1992-01-01

FTC, Fault-Tree Compiler program, is reliability-analysis software tool used to calculate probability of top event of fault tree. Five different types of gates allowed in fault tree: AND, OR, EXCLUSIVE OR, INVERT, and M OF N. High-level input language of FTC easy to understand and use. Program supports hierarchical fault-tree-definition feature simplifying process of description of tree and reduces execution time. Solution technique implemented in FORTRAN, and user interface in Pascal. Written to run on DEC VAX computer operating under VMS operating system.

STAR- A SIMPLE TOOL FOR AUTOMATED REASONING SUPPORTING HYBRID APPLICATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (DEC VAX VERSION)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Borchardt, G. C.

1994-01-01

The Simple Tool for Automated Reasoning program (STAR) is an interactive, interpreted programming language for the development and operation of artificial intelligence (AI) application systems. STAR provides an environment for integrating traditional AI symbolic processing with functions and data structures defined in compiled languages such as C, FORTRAN and PASCAL. This type of integration occurs in a number of AI applications including interpretation of numerical sensor data, construction of intelligent user interfaces to existing compiled software packages, and coupling AI techniques with numerical simulation techniques and control systems software. The STAR language was created as part of an AI project for the evaluation of imaging spectrometer data at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Programming in STAR is similar to other symbolic processing languages such as LISP and CLIP. STAR includes seven primitive data types and associated operations for the manipulation of these structures. A semantic network is used to organize data in STAR, with capabilities for inheritance of values and generation of side effects. The AI knowledge base of STAR can be a simple repository of records or it can be a highly interdependent association of implicit and explicit components. The symbolic processing environment of STAR may be extended by linking the interpreter with functions defined in conventional compiled languages. These external routines interact with STAR through function calls in either direction, and through the exchange of references to data structures. The hybrid knowledge base may thus be accessed and processed in general by either side of the application. STAR is initially used to link externally compiled routines and data structures. It is then invoked to interpret the STAR rules and symbolic structures. In a typical interactive session, the user enters an expression to be evaluated, STAR parses the input, evaluates the expression, performs any file input/output required, and displays the results. The STAR interpreter is written in the C language for interactive execution. It has been implemented on a VAX 11/780 computer operating under VMS, and the UNIX version has been implemented on a Sun Microsystems 2/170 workstation. STAR has a memory requirement of approximately 200K of 8 bit bytes, excluding externally compiled functions and application-dependent symbolic definitions. This program was developed in 1985.

STAR- A SIMPLE TOOL FOR AUTOMATED REASONING SUPPORTING HYBRID APPLICATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (UNIX VERSION)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Borchardt, G. C.

1994-01-01

The Simple Tool for Automated Reasoning program (STAR) is an interactive, interpreted programming language for the development and operation of artificial intelligence (AI) application systems. STAR provides an environment for integrating traditional AI symbolic processing with functions and data structures defined in compiled languages such as C, FORTRAN and PASCAL. This type of integration occurs in a number of AI applications including interpretation of numerical sensor data, construction of intelligent user interfaces to existing compiled software packages, and coupling AI techniques with numerical simulation techniques and control systems software. The STAR language was created as part of an AI project for the evaluation of imaging spectrometer data at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Programming in STAR is similar to other symbolic processing languages such as LISP and CLIP. STAR includes seven primitive data types and associated operations for the manipulation of these structures. A semantic network is used to organize data in STAR, with capabilities for inheritance of values and generation of side effects. The AI knowledge base of STAR can be a simple repository of records or it can be a highly interdependent association of implicit and explicit components. The symbolic processing environment of STAR may be extended by linking the interpreter with functions defined in conventional compiled languages. These external routines interact with STAR through function calls in either direction, and through the exchange of references to data structures. The hybrid knowledge base may thus be accessed and processed in general by either side of the application. STAR is initially used to link externally compiled routines and data structures. It is then invoked to interpret the STAR rules and symbolic structures. In a typical interactive session, the user enters an expression to be evaluated, STAR parses the input, evaluates the expression, performs any file input/output required, and displays the results. The STAR interpreter is written in the C language for interactive execution. It has been implemented on a VAX 11/780 computer operating under VMS, and the UNIX version has been implemented on a Sun Microsystems 2/170 workstation. STAR has a memory requirement of approximately 200K of 8 bit bytes, excluding externally compiled functions and application-dependent symbolic definitions. This program was developed in 1985.

Interactive radio in the classroom: ten years of proven success.

PubMed

Imhoof, M

1985-01-01

Interactive instructional radio programming is an innovative, inexpensive, and highly effective educational tool. In interactive radio programming, lessons are provided by a radio instructor, but unlike other radio education programs, the instructor prompts responses from the radio audience, provides pauses for audience responses, and then supplies the correct response to the prompt. The lessons are generally supervised by a classroom teacher, and the students respond to the radio prompts either orally or in writing. The lessons encourage student participation, and the programs frequently require more than 100 audience responses for each 1/2 hour of radio programing. The US Agency for International Development's Office of Education in the Bureau for Science and Technology researched and developed the tool during the last 10 years, and conducted highly successful experimental projects with it in Kenya, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic. In September 1984 a conference, jointly sponsored by the agency and Kenya's Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology, was held in Nairobi to demonstrate the new tool and to encourage other countries to utilize the approach. Participants visited rural classrooms in Kenya where they had an opportunity to observe how the technique was being successfully used in Kenya's Radio Language Arts Project. In view of the successful results attained in the experimental projects of the 3 countries noted above, the conference participants recommended that the technique should immediately be integrated into the national curricula of these countries, and that the approach should be more widely used in other countries. They noted that the technique is especially appropriate for use in primary schools and in nonformal adult education programs and that the tool is especially useful for teaching mathematics and second languages. They recommended that educators in developing countries develop interactive instructional radio programs, evaluate these programs, and then integrate the approach in the school curriculum. The participants noted that the technique can serve to upgrade the quality of classroom teaching and that the approach can be also used to provide teachers with inservice training. They further recommended that administrators and parents should be provided with information about the technique and its advantages, and that efforts should be made to immediately promote its use.

PsyToolkit: a software package for programming psychological experiments using Linux.

PubMed

Stoet, Gijsbert

2010-11-01

PsyToolkit is a set of software tools for programming psychological experiments on Linux computers. Given that PsyToolkit is freely available under the Gnu Public License, open source, and designed such that it can easily be modified and extended for individual needs, it is suitable not only for technically oriented Linux users, but also for students, researchers on small budgets, and universities in developing countries. The software includes a high-level scripting language, a library for the programming language C, and a questionnaire presenter. The software easily integrates with other open source tools, such as the statistical software package R. PsyToolkit is designed to work with external hardware (including IoLab and Cedrus response keyboards and two common digital input/output boards) and to support millisecond timing precision. Four in-depth examples explain the basic functionality of PsyToolkit. Example 1 demonstrates a stimulus-response compatibility experiment. Example 2 demonstrates a novel mouse-controlled visual search experiment. Example 3 shows how to control light emitting diodes using PsyToolkit, and Example 4 shows how to build a light-detection sensor. The last two examples explain the electronic hardware setup such that they can even be used with other software packages.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Radousky, H B

This months issue has the following articles: (1) Innovative Solutions Reap Rewards--Commentary by George H. Miller; (2) Surveillance on the Fly--An airborne surveillance system can track up to 8,000 moving objects in an area the size of a small city; (3) A Detector Radioactive Particles Can't Evade--An ultrahigh-resolution spectrometer can detect the minute thermal energy deposited by a single gamma ray or neutron; (4) Babel Speeds Communication among Programming Languages--The Babel program allows software applications in different programming languages to communicate quickly; (5) A Gem of a Software Tool--The data-mining software Sapphire allows scientists to analyze enormous data sets generatedmore » by diverse applications; (6) Interferometer Improves the Search for Planets--With externally dispersed interferometry, astronomers can use an inexpensive, compact instrument to search for distant planets; (7) Efficiently Changing the Color of Laser Light--Yttrium-calcium-oxyborate crystals provide an efficient, compact approach to wavelength conversion for high-average-power lasers; (8) Pocket-Sized Test Detects Trace Explosives--A detection kit sensitive to more than 30 explosives provides an inexpensive, easy-to-use tool for security forces everywhere; (9) Tailor-Made Microdevices Serve Big Needs--The Center for Micro- and Nanotechnology develops tiny devices for national security.« less

Sharing programming resources between Bio* projects through remote procedure call and native call stack strategies.

PubMed

Prins, Pjotr; Goto, Naohisa; Yates, Andrew; Gautier, Laurent; Willis, Scooter; Fields, Christopher; Katayama, Toshiaki

2012-01-01

Open-source software (OSS) encourages computer programmers to reuse software components written by others. In evolutionary bioinformatics, OSS comes in a broad range of programming languages, including C/C++, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java, and R. To avoid writing the same functionality multiple times for different languages, it is possible to share components by bridging computer languages and Bio* projects, such as BioPerl, Biopython, BioRuby, BioJava, and R/Bioconductor. In this chapter, we compare the two principal approaches for sharing software between different programming languages: either by remote procedure call (RPC) or by sharing a local call stack. RPC provides a language-independent protocol over a network interface; examples are RSOAP and Rserve. The local call stack provides a between-language mapping not over the network interface, but directly in computer memory; examples are R bindings, RPy, and languages sharing the Java Virtual Machine stack. This functionality provides strategies for sharing of software between Bio* projects, which can be exploited more often. Here, we present cross-language examples for sequence translation, and measure throughput of the different options. We compare calling into R through native R, RSOAP, Rserve, and RPy interfaces, with the performance of native BioPerl, Biopython, BioJava, and BioRuby implementations, and with call stack bindings to BioJava and the European Molecular Biology Open Software Suite. In general, call stack approaches outperform native Bio* implementations and these, in turn, outperform RPC-based approaches. To test and compare strategies, we provide a downloadable BioNode image with all examples, tools, and libraries included. The BioNode image can be run on VirtualBox-supported operating systems, including Windows, OSX, and Linux.

PCG: A prototype incremental compilation facility for the SAGA environment, appendix F

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kimball, Joseph John

1985-01-01

A programming environment supports the activity of developing and maintaining software. New environments provide language-oriented tools such as syntax-directed editors, whose usefulness is enhanced because they embody language-specific knowledge. When syntactic and semantic analysis occur early in the cycle of program production, that is, during editing, the use of a standard compiler is inefficient, for it must re-analyze the program before generating code. Likewise, it is inefficient to recompile an entire file, when the editor can determine that only portions of it need updating. The pcg, or Pascal code generation, facility described here generates code directly from the syntax trees produced by the SAGA syntax directed Pascal editor. By preserving the intermediate code used in the previous compilation, it can limit recompilation to the routines actually modified by editing.

A tool to convert CAD models for importation into Geant4

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vuosalo, C.; Carlsmith, D.; Dasu, S.; Palladino, K.; LUX-ZEPLIN Collaboration

2017-10-01

The engineering design of a particle detector is usually performed in a Computer Aided Design (CAD) program, and simulation of the detector’s performance can be done with a Geant4-based program. However, transferring the detector design from the CAD program to Geant4 can be laborious and error-prone. SW2GDML is a tool that reads a design in the popular SOLIDWORKS CAD program and outputs Geometry Description Markup Language (GDML), used by Geant4 for importing and exporting detector geometries. Other methods for outputting CAD designs are available, such as the STEP format, and tools exist to convert these formats into GDML. However, these conversion methods produce very large and unwieldy designs composed of tessellated solids that can reduce Geant4 performance. In contrast, SW2GDML produces compact, human-readable GDML that employs standard geometric shapes rather than tessellated solids. This paper will describe the development and current capabilities of SW2GDML and plans for its enhancement. The aim of this tool is to automate importation of detector engineering models into Geant4-based simulation programs to support rapid, iterative cycles of detector design, simulation, and optimization.

Creation of a simple natural language processing tool to support an imaging utilization quality dashboard.

PubMed

Swartz, Jordan; Koziatek, Christian; Theobald, Jason; Smith, Silas; Iturrate, Eduardo

2017-05-01

Testing for venous thromboembolism (VTE) is associated with cost and risk to patients (e.g. radiation). To assess the appropriateness of imaging utilization at the provider level, it is important to know that provider's diagnostic yield (percentage of tests positive for the diagnostic entity of interest). However, determining diagnostic yield typically requires either time-consuming, manual review of radiology reports or the use of complex and/or proprietary natural language processing software. The objectives of this study were twofold: 1) to develop and implement a simple, user-configurable, and open-source natural language processing tool to classify radiology reports with high accuracy and 2) to use the results of the tool to design a provider-specific VTE imaging dashboard, consisting of both utilization rate and diagnostic yield. Two physicians reviewed a training set of 400 lower extremity ultrasound (UTZ) and computed tomography pulmonary angiogram (CTPA) reports to understand the language used in VTE-positive and VTE-negative reports. The insights from this review informed the arguments to the five modifiable parameters of the NLP tool. A validation set of 2,000 studies was then independently classified by the reviewers and by the tool; the classifications were compared and the performance of the tool was calculated. The tool was highly accurate in classifying the presence and absence of VTE for both the UTZ (sensitivity 95.7%; 95% CI 91.5-99.8, specificity 100%; 95% CI 100-100) and CTPA reports (sensitivity 97.1%; 95% CI 94.3-99.9, specificity 98.6%; 95% CI 97.8-99.4). The diagnostic yield was then calculated at the individual provider level and the imaging dashboard was created. We have created a novel NLP tool designed for users without a background in computer programming, which has been used to classify venous thromboembolism reports with a high degree of accuracy. The tool is open-source and available for download at http://iturrate.com/simpleNLP. Results obtained using this tool can be applied to enhance quality by presenting information about utilization and yield to providers via an imaging dashboard. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

FTC - THE FAULT-TREE COMPILER (SUN VERSION)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Butler, R. W.

1994-01-01

FTC, the Fault-Tree Compiler program, is a tool used to calculate the top-event probability for a fault-tree. Five different gate types are allowed in the fault tree: AND, OR, EXCLUSIVE OR, INVERT, and M OF N. The high-level input language is easy to understand and use. In addition, the program supports a hierarchical fault tree definition feature which simplifies the tree-description process and reduces execution time. A rigorous error bound is derived for the solution technique. This bound enables the program to supply an answer precisely (within the limits of double precision floating point arithmetic) at a user-specified number of digits accuracy. The program also facilitates sensitivity analysis with respect to any specified parameter of the fault tree such as a component failure rate or a specific event probability by allowing the user to vary one failure rate or the failure probability over a range of values and plot the results. The mathematical approach chosen to solve a reliability problem may vary with the size and nature of the problem. Although different solution techniques are utilized on different programs, it is possible to have a common input language. The Systems Validation Methods group at NASA Langley Research Center has created a set of programs that form the basis for a reliability analysis workstation. The set of programs are: SURE reliability analysis program (COSMIC program LAR-13789, LAR-14921); the ASSIST specification interface program (LAR-14193, LAR-14923), PAWS/STEM reliability analysis programs (LAR-14165, LAR-14920); and the FTC fault tree tool (LAR-14586, LAR-14922). FTC is used to calculate the top-event probability for a fault tree. PAWS/STEM and SURE are programs which interpret the same SURE language, but utilize different solution methods. ASSIST is a preprocessor that generates SURE language from a more abstract definition. SURE, ASSIST, and PAWS/STEM are also offered as a bundle. Please see the abstract for COS-10039/COS-10041, SARA - SURE/ASSIST Reliability Analysis Workstation, for pricing details. FTC was originally developed for DEC VAX series computers running VMS and was later ported for use on Sun computers running SunOS. The program is written in PASCAL, ANSI compliant C-language, and FORTRAN 77. The TEMPLATE graphics library is required to obtain graphical output. The standard distribution medium for the VMS version of FTC (LAR-14586) is a 9-track 1600 BPI magnetic tape in VMSINSTAL format. It is also available on a TK50 tape cartridge in VMSINSTAL format. Executables are included. The standard distribution medium for the Sun version of FTC (LAR-14922) is a .25 inch streaming magnetic tape cartridge in UNIX tar format. Both Sun3 and Sun4 executables are included. FTC was developed in 1989 and last updated in 1992. DEC, VAX, VMS, and TK50 are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation. UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T Bell Laboratories. SunOS is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.

FTC - THE FAULT-TREE COMPILER (VAX VMS VERSION)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Butler, R. W.

1994-01-01

FTC, the Fault-Tree Compiler program, is a tool used to calculate the top-event probability for a fault-tree. Five different gate types are allowed in the fault tree: AND, OR, EXCLUSIVE OR, INVERT, and M OF N. The high-level input language is easy to understand and use. In addition, the program supports a hierarchical fault tree definition feature which simplifies the tree-description process and reduces execution time. A rigorous error bound is derived for the solution technique. This bound enables the program to supply an answer precisely (within the limits of double precision floating point arithmetic) at a user-specified number of digits accuracy. The program also facilitates sensitivity analysis with respect to any specified parameter of the fault tree such as a component failure rate or a specific event probability by allowing the user to vary one failure rate or the failure probability over a range of values and plot the results. The mathematical approach chosen to solve a reliability problem may vary with the size and nature of the problem. Although different solution techniques are utilized on different programs, it is possible to have a common input language. The Systems Validation Methods group at NASA Langley Research Center has created a set of programs that form the basis for a reliability analysis workstation. The set of programs are: SURE reliability analysis program (COSMIC program LAR-13789, LAR-14921); the ASSIST specification interface program (LAR-14193, LAR-14923), PAWS/STEM reliability analysis programs (LAR-14165, LAR-14920); and the FTC fault tree tool (LAR-14586, LAR-14922). FTC is used to calculate the top-event probability for a fault tree. PAWS/STEM and SURE are programs which interpret the same SURE language, but utilize different solution methods. ASSIST is a preprocessor that generates SURE language from a more abstract definition. SURE, ASSIST, and PAWS/STEM are also offered as a bundle. Please see the abstract for COS-10039/COS-10041, SARA - SURE/ASSIST Reliability Analysis Workstation, for pricing details. FTC was originally developed for DEC VAX series computers running VMS and was later ported for use on Sun computers running SunOS. The program is written in PASCAL, ANSI compliant C-language, and FORTRAN 77. The TEMPLATE graphics library is required to obtain graphical output. The standard distribution medium for the VMS version of FTC (LAR-14586) is a 9-track 1600 BPI magnetic tape in VMSINSTAL format. It is also available on a TK50 tape cartridge in VMSINSTAL format. Executables are included. The standard distribution medium for the Sun version of FTC (LAR-14922) is a .25 inch streaming magnetic tape cartridge in UNIX tar format. Both Sun3 and Sun4 executables are included. FTC was developed in 1989 and last updated in 1992. DEC, VAX, VMS, and TK50 are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation. UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T Bell Laboratories. SunOS is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Automated Feedback as a Convergence Tool

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chenoweth, Tim; Corral, Karen; Scott, Kit

2016-01-01

This study evaluates two content delivery options for teaching a programming language to determine whether an asynchronous format can achieve the same learning efficacy as a traditional lecture (face-to-face) format. We use media synchronicity theory as a guide to choose media capabilities to incorporate into an asynchronous tutorial used…

AUTOMATED GIS WATERSHED ANALYSIS TOOLS FOR RUSLE/SEDMOD SOIL EROSION AND SEDIMENTATION MODELING

EPA Science Inventory

A comprehensive procedure for computing soil erosion and sediment delivery metrics has been developed using a suite of automated Arc Macro Language (AML ) scripts and a pair of processing- intensive ANSI C++ executable programs operating on an ESRI ArcGIS 8.x Workstation platform...

Teaching Techniques for the ESL Literacy Classroom. [Videotape.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gati, Sally

This 71-minute videotape presents a three-part program of classroom teaching techniques for teachers of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) literacy students. It shows students interacting with ESL literacy teachers, and focuses on: (1) essential teaching tools (chalkboard, easel, overhead projector, butcher paper, realia, pictures, flash cards,…

Exploring Literature through Films. Project ELF.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Los Angeles County Office of Education, Downey, CA.

Noting that instructional films can serve as a valuable tool to motivate students and to help them organize, interpret, and evaluate concepts presented, this program guide is designed to assist teachers in planning instructional activities that will effectively integrate films into the English language arts curriculum. The first section of the…

Language Tools: Communicating in Today's World of Business

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ribeiro, Sandra; Cunha, Suzana; da Silva, Manuel Moreira

2015-01-01

In a society increasingly mediated by technology, the medium has created unparalleled opportunities. As a result, it has refocused educators' attention on how technological literacy is both an essential learning outcome in all higher education programs, and the intermediary, the means to achieve the digital competences expected from employees. In…

[Application of virtual instrumentation technique in toxicological studies].

PubMed

Moczko, Jerzy A

2005-01-01

Research investigations require frequently direct connection of measuring equipment to the computer. Virtual instrumentation technique considerably facilitates programming of sophisticated acquisition-and-analysis procedures. In standard approach these two steps are performed subsequently with separate software tools. The acquired data are transfered with export / import procedures of particular program to the another one which executes next step of analysis. The described procedure is cumbersome, time consuming and may be potential source of the errors. In 1987 National Instruments Corporation introduced LabVIEW language based on the concept of graphical programming. Contrary to conventional textual languages it allows the researcher to concentrate on the resolved problem and omit all syntactical rules. Programs developed in LabVIEW are called as virtual instruments (VI) and are portable among different computer platforms as PCs, Macintoshes, Sun SPARCstations, Concurrent PowerMAX stations, HP PA/RISK workstations. This flexibility warrants that the programs prepared for one particular platform would be also appropriate to another one. In presented paper basic principles of connection of research equipment to computer systems were described.

Representing and reasoning about program in situation calculus

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, Bo; Zhang, Ming-yi; Wu, Mao-nian; Xie, Gang

2011-12-01

Situation calculus is an expressive tool for modeling dynamical system in artificial intelligence, changes in a dynamical world is represented naturally by the notions of action, situation and fluent in situation calculus. Program can be viewed as a discrete dynamical system, so it is possible to model program with situation calculus. To model program written in a smaller core programming language CL, notion of fluent is expanded for representing value of expression. Together with some functions returning concerned objects from expressions, a basic action theory of CL programming is constructed. Under such a theory, some properties of program, such as correctness and termination can be reasoned about.

PanWeb: A web interface for pan-genomic analysis.

PubMed

Pantoja, Yan; Pinheiro, Kenny; Veras, Allan; Araújo, Fabrício; Lopes de Sousa, Ailton; Guimarães, Luis Carlos; Silva, Artur; Ramos, Rommel T J

2017-01-01

With increased production of genomic data since the advent of next-generation sequencing (NGS), there has been a need to develop new bioinformatics tools and areas, such as comparative genomics. In comparative genomics, the genetic material of an organism is directly compared to that of another organism to better understand biological species. Moreover, the exponentially growing number of deposited prokaryote genomes has enabled the investigation of several genomic characteristics that are intrinsic to certain species. Thus, a new approach to comparative genomics, termed pan-genomics, was developed. In pan-genomics, various organisms of the same species or genus are compared. Currently, there are many tools that can perform pan-genomic analyses, such as PGAP (Pan-Genome Analysis Pipeline), Panseq (Pan-Genome Sequence Analysis Program) and PGAT (Prokaryotic Genome Analysis Tool). Among these software tools, PGAP was developed in the Perl scripting language and its reliance on UNIX platform terminals and its requirement for an extensive parameterized command line can become a problem for users without previous computational knowledge. Thus, the aim of this study was to develop a web application, known as PanWeb, that serves as a graphical interface for PGAP. In addition, using the output files of the PGAP pipeline, the application generates graphics using custom-developed scripts in the R programming language. PanWeb is freely available at http://www.computationalbiology.ufpa.br/panweb.

Shared brain lateralization patterns in language and Acheulean stone tool production: a functional transcranial Doppler ultrasound study.

PubMed

Uomini, Natalie Thaïs; Meyer, Georg Friedrich

2013-01-01

The popular theory that complex tool-making and language co-evolved in the human lineage rests on the hypothesis that both skills share underlying brain processes and systems. However, language and stone tool-making have so far only been studied separately using a range of neuroimaging techniques and diverse paradigms. We present the first-ever study of brain activation that directly compares active Acheulean tool-making and language. Using functional transcranial Doppler ultrasonography (fTCD), we measured brain blood flow lateralization patterns (hemodynamics) in subjects who performed two tasks designed to isolate the planning component of Acheulean stone tool-making and cued word generation as a language task. We show highly correlated hemodynamics in the initial 10 seconds of task execution. Stone tool-making and cued word generation cause common cerebral blood flow lateralization signatures in our participants. This is consistent with a shared neural substrate for prehistoric stone tool-making and language, and is compatible with language evolution theories that posit a co-evolution of language and manual praxis. In turn, our results support the hypothesis that aspects of language might have emerged as early as 1.75 million years ago, with the start of Acheulean technology.

Improving the Plasticity of LIMS Implementation: LIMS Extension through Microsoft Excel

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Culver, Mark

2017-01-01

A Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) is a databasing software with many built-in tools ideal for handling and documenting most laboratory processes in an accurate and consistent manner, making it an indispensable tool for the modern laboratory. However, a lot of LIMS end users will find that in the performance of analyses that have unique considerations such as standard curves, multiple stages incubations, or logical considerations, a base LIMS distribution may not ideally suit their needs. These considerations bring about the need for extension languages, which can extend the functionality of a LIMS. While these languages do provide the implementation team the functionality required to accommodate these special laboratory analyses, they are usually too complex for the end user to modify to compensate for natural changes in laboratory operations. The LIMS utilized by our laboratory offers a unique and easy-to-use choice for an extension language, one that is already heavily relied upon not only in science but also in most academic and business pursuits: Microsoft Excel. The validity of Microsoft Excel as a pseudo programming language and its usability and versatility as a LIMS extension language will be discussed. The NELAC implications and overall drawbacks of this LIMS configuration will also be discussed.

Prototyping Tool for Web-Based Multiuser Online Role-Playing Game

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Okamoto, Shusuke; Kamada, Masaru; Yonekura, Tatsuhiro

This letter proposes a prototyping tool for Web-based Multiuser Online Role-Playing Game (MORPG). The design goal is to make this tool simple and powerful. The tool is comprised of a GUI editor, a translator and a runtime environment. The GUI editor is used to edit state-transition diagrams, each of which defines the behavior of the fictional characters. The state-transition diagrams are translated into C program codes, which plays the role of a game engine in RPG system. The runtime environment includes PHP, JavaScript with Ajax and HTML. So the prototype system can be played on the usual Web browser, such as Fire-fox, Safari and IE. On a click or key press by a player, the Web browser sends it to the Web server to reflect its consequence on the screens which other players are looking at. Prospected users of this tool include programming novices and schoolchildren. The knowledge or skill of any specific programming languages is not required to create state-transition diagrams. Its structure is not only suitable for the definition of a character behavior but also intuitive to help novices understand. Therefore, the users can easily create Web-based MORPG system with the tool.

Dairy Tool Box Talks: A Comprehensive Worker Training in Dairy Farming

PubMed Central

Rovai, Maristela; Carroll, Heidi; Foos, Rebecca; Erickson, Tracey; Garcia, Alvaro

2016-01-01

Today’s dairies are growing rapidly, with increasing dependence on Latino immigrant workers. This requires new educational strategies for improving milk quality and introduction to state-of-the-art dairy farming practices. It also creates knowledge gaps pertaining to the health of animals and workers, mainly due to the lack of time and language barriers. Owners, managers, and herdsmen assign training duties to more experienced employees, which may not promote “best practices” and may perpetuate bad habits. A comprehensive and periodic training program administered by qualified personnel is currently needed and will enhance the sustainability of the dairy industry. Strategic management and employee satisfaction will be achieved through proper training in the employee’s language, typically Spanish. The training needs to address not only current industry standards but also social and cultural differences. An innovative training course was developed following the same structure used by the engineering and construction industries, giving farm workers basic understanding of animal care and handling, cow comfort, and personal safety. The “Dairy Tool Box Talks” program was conducted over a 10-week period with nine sessions according to farm’s various employee work shifts. Bulk milk bacterial counts and somatic cell counts were used to evaluate milk quality on the three dairy farms participating in the program. “Dairy Tool Box Talks” resulted in a general sense of employee satisfaction, significant learning outcomes, and enthusiasm about the topics covered. We conclude this article by highlighting the importance of educational programs aimed at improving overall cross-cultural training. PMID:27471726

A high-level language for rule-based modelling.

PubMed

Pedersen, Michael; Phillips, Andrew; Plotkin, Gordon D

2015-01-01

Rule-based languages such as Kappa excel in their support for handling the combinatorial complexities prevalent in many biological systems, including signalling pathways. But Kappa provides little structure for organising rules, and large models can therefore be hard to read and maintain. This paper introduces a high-level, modular extension of Kappa called LBS-κ. We demonstrate the constructs of the language through examples and three case studies: a chemotaxis switch ring, a MAPK cascade, and an insulin signalling pathway. We then provide a formal definition of LBS-κ through an abstract syntax and a translation to plain Kappa. The translation is implemented in a compiler tool which is available as a web application. We finally demonstrate how to increase the expressivity of LBS-κ through embedded scripts in a general-purpose programming language, a technique which we view as generally applicable to other domain specific languages.

A High-Level Language for Rule-Based Modelling

PubMed Central

Pedersen, Michael; Phillips, Andrew; Plotkin, Gordon D.

2015-01-01

Rule-based languages such as Kappa excel in their support for handling the combinatorial complexities prevalent in many biological systems, including signalling pathways. But Kappa provides little structure for organising rules, and large models can therefore be hard to read and maintain. This paper introduces a high-level, modular extension of Kappa called LBS-κ. We demonstrate the constructs of the language through examples and three case studies: a chemotaxis switch ring, a MAPK cascade, and an insulin signalling pathway. We then provide a formal definition of LBS-κ through an abstract syntax and a translation to plain Kappa. The translation is implemented in a compiler tool which is available as a web application. We finally demonstrate how to increase the expressivity of LBS-κ through embedded scripts in a general-purpose programming language, a technique which we view as generally applicable to other domain specific languages. PMID:26043208

Declarative language design for interactive visualization.

PubMed

Heer, Jeffrey; Bostock, Michael

2010-01-01

We investigate the design of declarative, domain-specific languages for constructing interactive visualizations. By separating specification from execution, declarative languages can simplify development, enable unobtrusive optimization, and support retargeting across platforms. We describe the design of the Protovis specification language and its implementation within an object-oriented, statically-typed programming language (Java). We demonstrate how to support rich visualizations without requiring a toolkit-specific data model and extend Protovis to enable declarative specification of animated transitions. To support cross-platform deployment, we introduce rendering and event-handling infrastructures decoupled from the runtime platform, letting designers retarget visualization specifications (e.g., from desktop to mobile phone) with reduced effort. We also explore optimizations such as runtime compilation of visualization specifications, parallelized execution, and hardware-accelerated rendering. We present benchmark studies measuring the performance gains provided by these optimizations and compare performance to existing Java-based visualization tools, demonstrating scalability improvements exceeding an order of magnitude.

L-Py: An L-System Simulation Framework for Modeling Plant Architecture Development Based on a Dynamic Language

PubMed Central

Boudon, Frédéric; Pradal, Christophe; Cokelaer, Thomas; Prusinkiewicz, Przemyslaw; Godin, Christophe

2012-01-01

The study of plant development requires increasingly powerful modeling tools to help understand and simulate the growth and functioning of plants. In the last decade, the formalism of L-systems has emerged as a major paradigm for modeling plant development. Previous implementations of this formalism were made based on static languages, i.e., languages that require explicit definition of variable types before using them. These languages are often efficient but involve quite a lot of syntactic overhead, thus restricting the flexibility of use for modelers. In this work, we present an adaptation of L-systems to the Python language, a popular and powerful open-license dynamic language. We show that the use of dynamic language properties makes it possible to enhance the development of plant growth models: (i) by keeping a simple syntax while allowing for high-level programming constructs, (ii) by making code execution easy and avoiding compilation overhead, (iii) by allowing a high-level of model reusability and the building of complex modular models, and (iv) by providing powerful solutions to integrate MTG data-structures (that are a common way to represent plants at several scales) into L-systems and thus enabling to use a wide spectrum of computer tools based on MTGs developed for plant architecture. We then illustrate the use of L-Py in real applications to build complex models or to teach plant modeling in the classroom. PMID:22670147

L-py: an L-system simulation framework for modeling plant architecture development based on a dynamic language.

PubMed

Boudon, Frédéric; Pradal, Christophe; Cokelaer, Thomas; Prusinkiewicz, Przemyslaw; Godin, Christophe

2012-01-01

The study of plant development requires increasingly powerful modeling tools to help understand and simulate the growth and functioning of plants. In the last decade, the formalism of L-systems has emerged as a major paradigm for modeling plant development. Previous implementations of this formalism were made based on static languages, i.e., languages that require explicit definition of variable types before using them. These languages are often efficient but involve quite a lot of syntactic overhead, thus restricting the flexibility of use for modelers. In this work, we present an adaptation of L-systems to the Python language, a popular and powerful open-license dynamic language. We show that the use of dynamic language properties makes it possible to enhance the development of plant growth models: (i) by keeping a simple syntax while allowing for high-level programming constructs, (ii) by making code execution easy and avoiding compilation overhead, (iii) by allowing a high-level of model reusability and the building of complex modular models, and (iv) by providing powerful solutions to integrate MTG data-structures (that are a common way to represent plants at several scales) into L-systems and thus enabling to use a wide spectrum of computer tools based on MTGs developed for plant architecture. We then illustrate the use of L-Py in real applications to build complex models or to teach plant modeling in the classroom.

Improving Demonstration Using Better Interaction Techniques

DTIC Science & Technology

1997-01-14

Programming by demonstration (PBD) can be used to create tools and methods that eliminate the need to learn difficult computer languages. Gamut is a...do this, Gamut uses advanced interaction techniques that make it easier for a software author to express all needed aspects of one’s program. These...techniques include a simplified way to demonstrate new examples, called nudges, and a way to highlight objects to show they are important. Also, Gamut

Ada Programming Support Environment (APSE) Evaluation and Validation (E&V) Team

DTIC Science & Technology

1991-12-31

standards. The purpose of the team was to assist the project in several ways. Raymond Szymanski of Wright Research Iand Development Center (WRDC, now...debuggers, program library systems, and compiler diagnostics. The test suite does not include explicit tests for the existence of language features . The...support software is a set of tools and procedures which assist in preparing and executing the test suite, in extracting data from the results of

The efficiency of geophysical adjoint codes generated by automatic differentiation tools

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vlasenko, A. V.; Köhl, A.; Stammer, D.

2016-02-01

The accuracy of numerical models that describe complex physical or chemical processes depends on the choice of model parameters. Estimating an optimal set of parameters by optimization algorithms requires knowledge of the sensitivity of the process of interest to model parameters. Typically the sensitivity computation involves differentiation of the model, which can be performed by applying algorithmic differentiation (AD) tools to the underlying numerical code. However, existing AD tools differ substantially in design, legibility and computational efficiency. In this study we show that, for geophysical data assimilation problems of varying complexity, the performance of adjoint codes generated by the existing AD tools (i) Open_AD, (ii) Tapenade, (iii) NAGWare and (iv) Transformation of Algorithms in Fortran (TAF) can be vastly different. Based on simple test problems, we evaluate the efficiency of each AD tool with respect to computational speed, accuracy of the adjoint, the efficiency of memory usage, and the capability of each AD tool to handle modern FORTRAN 90-95 elements such as structures and pointers, which are new elements that either combine groups of variables or provide aliases to memory addresses, respectively. We show that, while operator overloading tools are the only ones suitable for modern codes written in object-oriented programming languages, their computational efficiency lags behind source transformation by orders of magnitude, rendering the application of these modern tools to practical assimilation problems prohibitive. In contrast, the application of source transformation tools appears to be the most efficient choice, allowing handling even large geophysical data assimilation problems. However, they can only be applied to numerical models written in earlier generations of programming languages. Our study indicates that applying existing AD tools to realistic geophysical problems faces limitations that urgently need to be solved to allow the continuous use of AD tools for solving geophysical problems on modern computer architectures.

FRED: a program development tool

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Shilling, J.

1985-09-01

The structured, screen-based editor FRED is introduced. FRED provides incremental parsing and semantic analysis. The parsing is based on an LL(1) top-down algorithm which has been modified to provide follow-the-cursor parsing and soft templates. The languages accepted by the editor are LL(1) languages with the addition of the Unknown and preferred production non-terminal classes. The semantic analysis is based on the incremental update of attribute grammar equations. We briefly describe the interface between FRED and an automated reference librarian system that is under development.

A phenomenographic study of the ways of understanding conditional and repetition structures in computer programming languages

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bucks, Gregory Warren

Computers have become an integral part of how engineers complete their work, allowing them to collect and analyze data, model potential solutions and aiding in production through automation and robotics. In addition, computers are essential elements of the products themselves, from tennis shoes to construction materials. An understanding of how computers function, both at the hardware and software level, is essential for the next generation of engineers. Despite the need for engineers to develop a strong background in computing, little opportunity is given for engineering students to develop these skills. Learning to program is widely seen as a difficult task, requiring students to develop not only an understanding of specific concepts, but also a way of thinking. In addition, students are forced to learn a new tool, in the form of the programming environment employed, along with these concepts and thought processes. Because of this, many students will not develop a sufficient proficiency in programming, even after progressing through the traditional introductory programming sequence. This is a significant problem, especially in the engineering disciplines, where very few students receive more than one or two semesters' worth of instruction in an already crowded engineering curriculum. To address these issues, new pedagogical techniques must be investigated in an effort to enhance the ability of engineering students to develop strong computing skills. However, these efforts are hindered by the lack of published assessment instruments available for probing an individual's understanding of programming concepts across programming languages. Traditionally, programming knowledge has been assessed by producing written code in a specific language. This can be an effective method, but does not lend itself well to comparing the pedagogical impact of different programming environments, languages or paradigms. This dissertation presents a phenomenographic research study exploring the different ways of understanding held by individuals of two programming concepts: conditional structures and repetition structures. This work lays the foundation for the development of language independent assessment instruments, which can ultimately be used to assess the pedagogical implications of various programming environments.

[Development and Use of Hidrosig

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gupta, Vijay K.; Milne, Bruce T.

2003-01-01

The NASA portion of this joint NSF-NASA grant consists of objective 2 and a part of objective 3. A major effort was made on objective 2, and it consisted of developing a numerical GIs environment called Hidrosig. This major research tool is being developed by the University of Colorado for conducting river-network-based scaling analyses of coupled water-energy-landform-vegetation interactions including water and energy balances, and floods and droughts, at multiple space-time scales.Objective 2: To analyze the relevant remotely sensed products from satellites, radars and ground measurements to compute the transported water mass for each complete Strahler stream using an 'assimilated water balance equation' at daily and other appropriate time scales. This objective requires analysis of concurrent data sets for Precipitation (PPT), Evapotranspiration (ET) and stream flows (Q) on river networks. To solve this major problem, our decision was to develop Hidrosig, a new Open-Source GIs software. A research group in Colombia, South America, developed the first version of Hidrosig, and Ricardo Mantilla was part of this effort as an undergraduate student before joining the graduate program at the University of Colorado in 2001. Hydrosig automatically extracts river networks from large DEMs and creates a "link-based" data structure, which is required to conduct a variety of analyses under objective 2. It is programmed in Java, which is a multi-platform programming language freely distributed by SUN under a GPL license. Some existent commercial tools like Arc-Info, RiverTools and others are not suitable for our purpose for two reasons. First, the source code is not available that is needed to build on the network data structure. Second, these tools use different programming languages that are not most versatile for our purposes. For example, RiverTools uses an IDL platform that is not very efficient for organizing diverse data sets on river networks. Hidrosig establishes a clear data organization framework that allows a simultaneous analysis of spatial fields along river network structures involving Horton- Strahler framework. Software tools for network extraction from DEMs and network-based analysis of geomorphologic and topologic variables were developed during the first year and a part of second year.

Conversion of HSPF Legacy Model to a Platform-Independent, Open-Source Language

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Heaphy, R. T.; Burke, M. P.; Love, J. T.

2015-12-01

Since its initial development over 30 years ago, the Hydrologic Simulation Program - FORTAN (HSPF) model has been used worldwide to support water quality planning and management. In the United States, HSPF receives widespread endorsement as a regulatory tool at all levels of government and is a core component of the EPA's Better Assessment Science Integrating Point and Nonpoint Sources (BASINS) system, which was developed to support nationwide Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) analysis. However, the model's legacy code and data management systems have limitations in their ability to integrate with modern software, hardware, and leverage parallel computing, which have left voids in optimization, pre-, and post-processing tools. Advances in technology and our scientific understanding of environmental processes that have occurred over the last 30 years mandate that upgrades be made to HSPF to allow it to evolve and continue to be a premiere tool for water resource planners. This work aims to mitigate the challenges currently facing HSPF through two primary tasks: (1) convert code to a modern widely accepted, open-source, high-performance computing (hpc) code; and (2) convert model input and output files to modern widely accepted, open-source, data model, library, and binary file format. Python was chosen as the new language for the code conversion. It is an interpreted, object-oriented, hpc code with dynamic semantics that has become one of the most popular open-source languages. While python code execution can be slow compared to compiled, statically typed programming languages, such as C and FORTRAN, the integration of Numba (a just-in-time specializing compiler) has allowed this challenge to be overcome. For the legacy model data management conversion, HDF5 was chosen to store the model input and output. The code conversion for HSPF's hydrologic and hydraulic modules has been completed. The converted code has been tested against HSPF's suite of "test" runs and shown good agreement and similar execution times while using the Numba compiler. Continued verification of the accuracy of the converted code against more complex legacy applications and improvement upon execution times by incorporating an intelligent network change detection tool is currently underway, and preliminary results will be presented.

SAGA: A project to automate the management of software production systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Campbell, R. H.; Badger, W.; Beckman, C. S.; Beshers, G.; Hammerslag, D.; Kimball, J.; Kirslis, P. A.; Render, H.; Richards, P.; Terwilliger, R.

1984-01-01

The project to automate the management of software production systems is described. The SAGA system is a software environment that is designed to support most of the software development activities that occur in a software lifecycle. The system can be configured to support specific software development applications using given programming languages, tools, and methodologies. Meta-tools are provided to ease configuration. Several major components of the SAGA system are completed to prototype form. The construction methods are described.

R-SWAT-FME user's guide

USGS Publications Warehouse

Wu, Yiping; Liu, Shu-Guang

2012-01-01

R program language-Soil and Water Assessment Tool-Flexible Modeling Environment (R-SWAT-FME) (Wu and Liu, 2012) is a comprehensive modeling framework that adopts an R package, Flexible Modeling Environment (FME) (Soetaert and Petzoldt, 2010), for the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model (Arnold and others, 1998; Neitsch and others, 2005). This framework provides the functionalities of parameter identifiability, model calibration, and sensitivity and uncertainty analysis with instant visualization. This user's guide shows how to apply this framework for a customized SWAT project.

BioRuby: bioinformatics software for the Ruby programming language.

PubMed

Goto, Naohisa; Prins, Pjotr; Nakao, Mitsuteru; Bonnal, Raoul; Aerts, Jan; Katayama, Toshiaki

2010-10-15

The BioRuby software toolkit contains a comprehensive set of free development tools and libraries for bioinformatics and molecular biology, written in the Ruby programming language. BioRuby has components for sequence analysis, pathway analysis, protein modelling and phylogenetic analysis; it supports many widely used data formats and provides easy access to databases, external programs and public web services, including BLAST, KEGG, GenBank, MEDLINE and GO. BioRuby comes with a tutorial, documentation and an interactive environment, which can be used in the shell, and in the web browser. BioRuby is free and open source software, made available under the Ruby license. BioRuby runs on all platforms that support Ruby, including Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. And, with JRuby, BioRuby runs on the Java Virtual Machine. The source code is available from http://www.bioruby.org/. katayama@bioruby.org

Ancient Egypt

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Swamy, Ashwin Balegar

This thesis involves development of an interactive GIS (Geographic Information System) based application, which gives information about the ancient history of Egypt. The astonishing architecture, the strange burial rituals and their civilization were some of the intriguing questions that motivated me towards developing this application. The application is a historical timeline starting from 3100 BC, leading up to 664 BC, focusing on the evolution of the Egyptian dynasties. The tool holds information regarding some of the famous monuments which were constructed during that era and also about the civilizations that co-existed. It also provides details about the religions followed by their kings. It also includes the languages spoken during those periods. The tool is developed using JAVA, a programing language and MOJO (Map Objects Java Objects) a product of ESRI (Environmental Science Research Institute) to create map objects, to provide geographic information. JAVA Swing is used for designing the user interface. HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) pages are created to provide the user with more information related to the historic period. CSS (Cascade Style Sheets) and JAVA Scripts are used with HTML5 to achieve creative display of content. The tool is kept simple and easy for the user to interact with. The tool also includes pictures and videos for the user to get a feel of the historic period. The application is built to motivate people to know more about one of the prominent and ancient civilization of the Mediterranean world.

Assessing face validity of a physical activity questionnaire for Spanish-speaking women in California

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Background: A review of the literature produced no rigorously tested and validated Spanish-language physical activity survey or evaluation tools for use by USDA’s food assistance and education programs. The purpose of the current study was to develop and evaluate the face validity of a visually enha...

The Family Literacy Reading Project.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cason, Ann; Shoufler, Ann

This report describes a summer project using children's literature as a teaching tool in the literacy section of the Family Literacy Reading Project. The idea for the project arose in response to a need for other resources for the English-as-a-Second-Language program and to students' desire to read to their children and grandchildren as one…

Visiting Scholars Program

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-09-01

other associated grants. 15. SUBJECT TERMS SUNY Poly, STEM, Artificial Intelligence , Command and Control 16. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF: 17...neuromorphic system has the potential to be widely used in a high-efficiency artificial intelligence system. Simulation results have indicated that the...novel multiresolution fusion and advanced fusion performance evaluation tool for an Artificial Intelligence based natural language annotation engine for

"Immunity-to-Change Language Technology": An Educational Tool for Pastoral Leadership Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ste-Marie, Lorraine

2008-01-01

One of the primary aims of pastoral leadership education is to offer reflective processes that enable learners to surface, critique, and construct different epistemological conceptions of reality leading to more effective pastoral practice. In many pastoral leadership education programs, this type of intentional reflection usually takes place in a…

A Social Tool: Why and How ESOL Students Use Facebook

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mitchell, Kathleen

2012-01-01

English language learners in the United States and abroad have begun to utilize Facebook, a social networking site, which since its inception in 2004 has been extremely popular with American college students. This qualitative case study with participants from an intensive English program in the US explores seven ESOL students' motivations for…

National Workplace Literacy Program. Final Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Illinois Eastern Community Colleges, Olney.

The Snap-On Tools Workplace Literacy Grant developed a curriculum for training adult workers in technical math and reading, English as a Second Language (ESL), and blueprint reading. Curriculum development was based on a workplace audit. Reading levels increased an average of 0.8 of a grade level. Flexibility and implementation of adult student…

Creating an Outcomes-Based Tool for Learning Barrier Assessment in an Outpatient Education Program.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hernandez, Teri L.; Rupnow, Jana M.; Currie, Kristi A.; Procious, James K.; Adams, Jenny

2003-01-01

An outcomes-based assessment instrument was devised to screen patients for learning problems that would impede patient education in cardiac rehabilitation. Criteria for seven barriers were established: hearing, language, cultural, religious, vision, cognitive, emotional). Points of data collection and a rationale for collection were identified.…

Two Formats of Word Association Tasks: A Study of Depth of Word Knowledge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Agdam, Seddighe Jalili; Sadeghi, Karim

2014-01-01

Vocabulary development is an essential goal in any language teaching program, and considering the multidimensional nature of this construct, achieving this goal needs effective assessment of all dimensions of word knowledge, i.e. breadth, depth and accessibility of word knowledge. Most of the current vocabulary assessment tools measure the breadth…

Classic-Ada(TM)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Valley, Lois

1989-01-01

The SPS product, Classic-Ada, is a software tool that supports object-oriented Ada programming with powerful inheritance and dynamic binding. Object Oriented Design (OOD) is an easy, natural development paradigm, but it is not supported by Ada. Following the DOD Ada mandate, SPS developed Classic-Ada to provide a tool which supports OOD and implements code in Ada. It consists of a design language, a code generator and a toolset. As a design language, Classic-Ada supports the object-oriented principles of information hiding, data abstraction, dynamic binding, and inheritance. It also supports natural reuse and incremental development through inheritance, code factoring, and Ada, Classic-Ada, dynamic binding and static binding in the same program. Only nine new constructs were added to Ada to provide object-oriented design capabilities. The Classic-Ada code generator translates user application code into fully compliant, ready-to-run, standard Ada. The Classic-Ada toolset is fully supported by SPS and consists of an object generator, a builder, a dictionary manager, and a reporter. Demonstrations of Classic-Ada and the Classic-Ada Browser were given at the workshop.

A GIS tool for modelling annual diffuse infiltration on a plot scale

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

España, Salvador; Alcalá, Francisco J.; Vallejos, Ángela; Pulido-Bosch, Antonio

2013-04-01

ArcB is a GIS tool for modelling annual diffuse infiltration (RP) from precipitation (P) on a plot scale that uses ArcObjects as the programming language to incorporate equations and boundary conditions for the water-balance consistency. Because detailed weather, soil, and vegetation data are often missing, ArcB uses well-known non-global models such as Hargreaves for daily potential evapotranspiration and Budyko for annual actual evapotranspiration (EA), as well as the SCS Curve Number procedure for 24-h plot runoff (RO). Annual RP is quantified as the difference in annual P, EA, and RO. Because the use of non-global models for EA may induce suboptimal RP results, ArcB allows corrections of EA estimates by comparisons with data from a reference station. In a semiarid heterogeneous region in south-eastern Spain, the uncertainty of RO and RP was lowered to 4% and 2%, respectively, when correcting EA. ArcObjects is a versatile programming language which allows advanced users to incorporate more complex formulations for more accurate results as detailed data is acquired and to develop routines for calibration when reference data exist.

AMPS/PC - AUTOMATIC MANUFACTURING PROGRAMMING SYSTEM

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schroer, B. J.

1994-01-01

The AMPS/PC system is a simulation tool designed to aid the user in defining the specifications of a manufacturing environment and then automatically writing code for the target simulation language, GPSS/PC. The domain of problems that AMPS/PC can simulate are manufacturing assembly lines with subassembly lines and manufacturing cells. The user defines the problem domain by responding to the questions from the interface program. Based on the responses, the interface program creates an internal problem specification file. This file includes the manufacturing process network flow and the attributes for all stations, cells, and stock points. AMPS then uses the problem specification file as input for the automatic code generator program to produce a simulation program in the target language GPSS. The output of the generator program is the source code of the corresponding GPSS/PC simulation program. The system runs entirely on an IBM PC running PC DOS Version 2.0 or higher and is written in Turbo Pascal Version 4 requiring 640K memory and one 360K disk drive. To execute the GPSS program, the PC must have resident the GPSS/PC System Version 2.0 from Minuteman Software. The AMPS/PC program was developed in 1988.

A SCILAB Program for Computing General-Relativistic Models of Rotating Neutron Stars by Implementing Hartle's Perturbation Method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Papasotiriou, P. J.; Geroyannis, V. S.

We implement Hartle's perturbation method to the computation of relativistic rigidly rotating neutron star models. The program has been written in SCILAB (© INRIA ENPC), a matrix-oriented high-level programming language. The numerical method is described in very detail and is applied to many models in slow or fast rotation. We show that, although the method is perturbative, it gives accurate results for all practical purposes and it should prove an efficient tool for computing rapidly rotating pulsars.

Graphics Software For VT Terminals

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wang, Caroline

1991-01-01

VTGRAPH graphics software tool for DEC/VT computer terminal or terminals compatible with it, widely used by government and industry. Callable in FORTRAN or C language, library program enabling user to cope with many computer environments in which VT terminals used for window management and graphic systems. Provides PLOT10-like package plus color or shade capability for VT240, VT241, and VT300 terminals. User can easily design more-friendly user-interface programs and design PLOT10 programs on VT terminals with different computer systems. Requires ReGis graphics set terminal and FORTRAN compiler.

An object oriented Python interface for atomistic simulations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hynninen, T.; Himanen, L.; Parkkinen, V.; Musso, T.; Corander, J.; Foster, A. S.

2016-01-01

Programmable simulation environments allow one to monitor and control calculations efficiently and automatically before, during, and after runtime. Environments directly accessible in a programming environment can be interfaced with powerful external analysis tools and extensions to enhance the functionality of the core program, and by incorporating a flexible object based structure, the environments make building and analysing computational setups intuitive. In this work, we present a classical atomistic force field with an interface written in Python language. The program is an extension for an existing object based atomistic simulation environment.

Foundations of the Bandera Abstraction Tools

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hatcliff, John; Dwyer, Matthew B.; Pasareanu, Corina S.; Robby

2003-01-01

Current research is demonstrating that model-checking and other forms of automated finite-state verification can be effective for checking properties of software systems. Due to the exponential costs associated with model-checking, multiple forms of abstraction are often necessary to obtain system models that are tractable for automated checking. The Bandera Tool Set provides multiple forms of automated support for compiling concurrent Java software systems to models that can be supplied to several different model-checking tools. In this paper, we describe the foundations of Bandera's data abstraction mechanism which is used to reduce the cardinality (and the program's state-space) of data domains in software to be model-checked. From a technical standpoint, the form of data abstraction used in Bandera is simple, and it is based on classical presentations of abstract interpretation. We describe the mechanisms that Bandera provides for declaring abstractions, for attaching abstractions to programs, and for generating abstracted programs and properties. The contributions of this work are the design and implementation of various forms of tool support required for effective application of data abstraction to software components written in a programming language like Java which has a rich set of linguistic features.

Decision blocks: A tool for automating decision making in CLIPS

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Eick, Christoph F.; Mehta, Nikhil N.

1991-01-01

The human capability of making complex decision is one of the most fascinating facets of human intelligence, especially if vague, judgemental, default or uncertain knowledge is involved. Unfortunately, most existing rule based forward chaining languages are not very suitable to simulate this aspect of human intelligence, because of their lack of support for approximate reasoning techniques needed for this task, and due to the lack of specific constructs to facilitate the coding of frequently reoccurring decision block to provide better support for the design and implementation of rule based decision support systems. A language called BIRBAL, which is defined on the top of CLIPS, for the specification of decision blocks, is introduced. Empirical experiments involving the comparison of the length of CLIPS program with the corresponding BIRBAL program for three different applications are surveyed. The results of these experiments suggest that for decision making intensive applications, a CLIPS program tends to be about three times longer than the corresponding BIRBAL program.

Vertical Interaction in Open Software Engineering Communities

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-03-01

Program in CASOS (NSF,DGE-9972762), the Office of Naval Research under Dynamic Network Analysis program (N00014-02-1-0973, the Air Force Office of...W91WAW07C0063) for research in the area of dynamic network analysis. Additional support was provided by CASOS - the center for Computational Analysis of Social...methods across the domain. For a given project, de - velopers can choose from dozens of models, tools, platforms, and languages for specification, design

Proposed use of two-part interactive modeling as a means to increase functional skills in children with a variety of disabilities.

PubMed

Pepperberg, I M; Sherman, D

2000-01-01

Many behavior modification and intervention programs are based on operant procedures developed for animal subjects, but few use modeling procedures in which one student observes interactions between two proficient trainers. We show how such procedures, which successfully trained Grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus) to produce and comprehend elements of human language, can be adapted for use with children with three types of disabilities: (a) autism with limited social and language skills, (b) developmental delay with physical handicaps and lack of language skills, and (c) hyperactivity with impaired cognitive and social skills. Children were evaluated before entering the program and outcomes were recorded to determine improvement levels. No child reached totally normative (physical age-appropriate) levels, but all significantly improved their social and communication skills and use of contextually appropriate behavior. A two-trainer modeling system can be a valuable intervention tool for children whose disabilities involve social and communicative skills.

Building Automatic Grading Tools for Basic of Programming Lab in an Academic Institution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harimurti, Rina; Iwan Nurhidayat, Andi; Asmunin

2018-04-01

The skills of computer programming is a core competency that must be mastered by students majoring in computer sciences. The best way to improve this skill is through the practice of writing many programs to solve various problems from simple to complex. It takes hard work and a long time to check and evaluate the results of student labs one by one, especially if the number of students a lot. Based on these constrain, web proposes Automatic Grading Tools (AGT), the application that can evaluate and deeply check the source code in C, C++. The application architecture consists of students, web-based applications, compilers, and operating systems. Automatic Grading Tools (AGT) is implemented MVC Architecture and using open source software, such as laravel framework version 5.4, PostgreSQL 9.6, Bootstrap 3.3.7, and jquery library. Automatic Grading Tools has also been tested for real problems by submitting source code in C/C++ language and then compiling. The test results show that the AGT application has been running well.

RSAT 2018: regulatory sequence analysis tools 20th anniversary.

PubMed

Nguyen, Nga Thi Thuy; Contreras-Moreira, Bruno; Castro-Mondragon, Jaime A; Santana-Garcia, Walter; Ossio, Raul; Robles-Espinoza, Carla Daniela; Bahin, Mathieu; Collombet, Samuel; Vincens, Pierre; Thieffry, Denis; van Helden, Jacques; Medina-Rivera, Alejandra; Thomas-Chollier, Morgane

2018-05-02

RSAT (Regulatory Sequence Analysis Tools) is a suite of modular tools for the detection and the analysis of cis-regulatory elements in genome sequences. Its main applications are (i) motif discovery, including from genome-wide datasets like ChIP-seq/ATAC-seq, (ii) motif scanning, (iii) motif analysis (quality assessment, comparisons and clustering), (iv) analysis of regulatory variations, (v) comparative genomics. Six public servers jointly support 10 000 genomes from all kingdoms. Six novel or refactored programs have been added since the 2015 NAR Web Software Issue, including updated programs to analyse regulatory variants (retrieve-variation-seq, variation-scan, convert-variations), along with tools to extract sequences from a list of coordinates (retrieve-seq-bed), to select motifs from motif collections (retrieve-matrix), and to extract orthologs based on Ensembl Compara (get-orthologs-compara). Three use cases illustrate the integration of new and refactored tools to the suite. This Anniversary update gives a 20-year perspective on the software suite. RSAT is well-documented and available through Web sites, SOAP/WSDL (Simple Object Access Protocol/Web Services Description Language) web services, virtual machines and stand-alone programs at http://www.rsat.eu/.

ExcelAutomat: a tool for systematic processing of files as applied to quantum chemical calculations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Laloo, Jalal Z. A.; Laloo, Nassirah; Rhyman, Lydia; Ramasami, Ponnadurai

2017-07-01

The processing of the input and output files of quantum chemical calculations often necessitates a spreadsheet as a key component of the workflow. Spreadsheet packages with a built-in programming language editor can automate the steps involved and thus provide a direct link between processing files and the spreadsheet. This helps to reduce user-interventions as well as the need to switch between different programs to carry out each step. The ExcelAutomat tool is the implementation of this method in Microsoft Excel (MS Excel) using the default Visual Basic for Application (VBA) programming language. The code in ExcelAutomat was adapted to work with the platform-independent open-source LibreOffice Calc, which also supports VBA. ExcelAutomat provides an interface through the spreadsheet to automate repetitive tasks such as merging input files, splitting, parsing and compiling data from output files, and generation of unique filenames. Selected extracted parameters can be retrieved as variables which can be included in custom codes for a tailored approach. ExcelAutomat works with Gaussian files and is adapted for use with other computational packages including the non-commercial GAMESS. ExcelAutomat is available as a downloadable MS Excel workbook or as a LibreOffice workbook.

Runtime Detection of C-Style Errors in UPC Code

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Pirkelbauer, P; Liao, C; Panas, T

2011-09-29

Unified Parallel C (UPC) extends the C programming language (ISO C 99) with explicit parallel programming support for the partitioned global address space (PGAS), which provides a global memory space with localized partitions to each thread. Like its ancestor C, UPC is a low-level language that emphasizes code efficiency over safety. The absence of dynamic (and static) safety checks allows programmer oversights and software flaws that can be hard to spot. In this paper, we present an extension of a dynamic analysis tool, ROSE-Code Instrumentation and Runtime Monitor (ROSECIRM), for UPC to help programmers find C-style errors involving the globalmore » address space. Built on top of the ROSE source-to-source compiler infrastructure, the tool instruments source files with code that monitors operations and keeps track of changes to the system state. The resulting code is linked to a runtime monitor that observes the program execution and finds software defects. We describe the extensions to ROSE-CIRM that were necessary to support UPC. We discuss complications that arise from parallel code and our solutions. We test ROSE-CIRM against a runtime error detection test suite, and present performance results obtained from running error-free codes. ROSE-CIRM is released as part of the ROSE compiler under a BSD-style open source license.« less

ExcelAutomat: a tool for systematic processing of files as applied to quantum chemical calculations.

PubMed

Laloo, Jalal Z A; Laloo, Nassirah; Rhyman, Lydia; Ramasami, Ponnadurai

2017-07-01

The processing of the input and output files of quantum chemical calculations often necessitates a spreadsheet as a key component of the workflow. Spreadsheet packages with a built-in programming language editor can automate the steps involved and thus provide a direct link between processing files and the spreadsheet. This helps to reduce user-interventions as well as the need to switch between different programs to carry out each step. The ExcelAutomat tool is the implementation of this method in Microsoft Excel (MS Excel) using the default Visual Basic for Application (VBA) programming language. The code in ExcelAutomat was adapted to work with the platform-independent open-source LibreOffice Calc, which also supports VBA. ExcelAutomat provides an interface through the spreadsheet to automate repetitive tasks such as merging input files, splitting, parsing and compiling data from output files, and generation of unique filenames. Selected extracted parameters can be retrieved as variables which can be included in custom codes for a tailored approach. ExcelAutomat works with Gaussian files and is adapted for use with other computational packages including the non-commercial GAMESS. ExcelAutomat is available as a downloadable MS Excel workbook or as a LibreOffice workbook.

ART-Ada design project, phase 2

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lee, S. Daniel; Allen, Bradley P.

1990-01-01

Interest in deploying expert systems in Ada has increased. An Ada based expert system tool is described called ART-Ada, which was built to support research into the language and methodological issues of expert systems in Ada. ART-Ada allows applications of an existing expert system tool called ART-IM (Automated Reasoning Tool for Information Management) to be deployed in various Ada environments. ART-IM, a C-based expert system tool, is used to generate Ada source code which is compiled and linked with an Ada based inference engine to produce an Ada executable image. ART-Ada is being used to implement several expert systems for NASA's Space Station Freedom Program and the U.S. Air Force.

TokenPasser: A petri net specification tool. Thesis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mittmann, Michael

1991-01-01

In computer program design it is essential to know the effectiveness of different design options in improving performance, and dependability. This paper provides a description of a CAD tool for distributed hierarchical Petri nets. After a brief review of Petri nets, Petri net languages, and Petri net transducers, and descriptions of several current Petri net tools, the specifications and design of the TokenPasser tool are presented. TokenPasser is a tool to allow design of distributed hierarchical systems based on Petri nets. A case study for an intelligent robotic system is conducted, a coordination structure with one dispatcher controlling three coordinators is built to model a proposed robotic assembly system. The system is implemented using TokenPasser, and the results are analyzed to allow judgment of the tool.

Validation environment for AIPS/ALS: Implementation and results

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Segall, Zary; Siewiorek, Daniel; Caplan, Eddie; Chung, Alan; Czeck, Edward; Vrsalovic, Dalibor

1990-01-01

The work is presented which was performed in porting the Fault Injection-based Automated Testing (FIAT) and Programming and Instrumentation Environments (PIE) validation tools, to the Advanced Information Processing System (AIPS) in the context of the Ada Language System (ALS) application, as well as an initial fault free validation of the available AIPS system. The PIE components implemented on AIPS provide the monitoring mechanisms required for validation. These mechanisms represent a substantial portion of the FIAT system. Moreover, these are required for the implementation of the FIAT environment on AIPS. Using these components, an initial fault free validation of the AIPS system was performed. The implementation is described of the FIAT/PIE system, configured for fault free validation of the AIPS fault tolerant computer system. The PIE components were modified to support the Ada language. A special purpose AIPS/Ada runtime monitoring and data collection was implemented. A number of initial Ada programs running on the PIE/AIPS system were implemented. The instrumentation of the Ada programs was accomplished automatically inside the PIE programming environment. PIE's on-line graphical views show vividly and accurately the performance characteristics of Ada programs, AIPS kernel and the application's interaction with the AIPS kernel. The data collection mechanisms were written in a high level language, Ada, and provide a high degree of flexibility for implementation under various system conditions.

Basic Numeracy Abilities of Xhosa Reception Year Students in South Africa: Language Policy Issues

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Feza, Nosisi Nellie

2016-01-01

Language in mathematics learning and teaching has a significant role in influencing performance. Literature on language in mathematics learning has evolved from language as a barrier to language as a cultural tool, and recently more research has argued for use of home language as an instructional tool in mathematics classrooms. However, the…

Combining Collaborative Learning with Learning Management Systems in Teaching Programming Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cavus, Nadire; Uzunboylu, Huseyin; Ibrahim, Dogan

2006-01-01

The development of collaborative studies in learning has led to a renewed interest in the field of web-based education. In this experimental study, a highly interactive and collaborative teaching environment was created using Moodle, a learning management system with two types of Collaborative Tools (CTs): Standard CT and Advanced CT to create a…

Collaborative Writing among Second Language Learners in Academic Web-Based Projects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kessler, Greg; Bikowski, Dawn; Boggs, Jordan

2012-01-01

This study investigates Web-based, project oriented, many-to-many collaborative writing for academic purposes. Thirty-eight Fulbright scholars in an orientation program at a large Midwestern university used a Web-based word processing tool to collaboratively plan and report on a research project. The purpose of this study is to explore and…

Technology Use as Transformative Pedagogy: Using Video Editing Technology to Learn about Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Macy, Michelle

2011-01-01

Within the paradigm of Sociocultural Theory, and using Activity Theory as a data-gathering and management tool, this microgenetic case study examined the processes--the growth, change, and development--engaged in by student-teachers in a foreign language education program as they worked together to complete an activity. The activity involved…

Concept Mapping Revisited: Nurturing Children's Writing Skills in Science

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Isabelle, Aaron

2015-01-01

Concept mapping has long been used an assessment tool by educators to illustrate students' conceptual development of a topic over time. In this article, we chronicle the use of concept maps in a language arts environment. Focusing on a literacy tutoring program for struggling readers/writers centered on hands-on science experiments, we explain how…

Robust Deep Semantics for Language Understanding

DTIC Science & Technology

focus on five areas: deep learning, textual inferential relations, relation and event extraction by distant supervision , semantic parsing and...ontology expansion, and coreference resolution. As time went by, the program focus converged towards emphasizing technologies for knowledge base...natural logic methods for text understanding, improved mention coreference algorithms, and the further development of multilingual tools in CoreNLP.

Integration of Multimedia Courseware into ESP Instruction for Technological Purposes in Higher Technical Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tsai, Shu-Chiao

2012-01-01

This study reports on integrating ESP (English for specific purposes) multimedia courseware for semiconductor technology into instruction of three different language programs in higher education by using it as a silent partner. It focuses primarily on techniques and tools to motivate retention of under-prepared students in an EFL setting. The…

CAM Highlights (FY 80)

DTIC Science & Technology

1980-10-01

industrialized nations in almost every manufacturing market place. Many foreign nation’s manu- facturing advancements have resulted from...towards planning a computerized data storage and retrieval system based on Group Technology (GT) principles . The data storage and re- trieval...several computer languages available on the market to program numerically controlled machine tools. However, there was a need for a docu- ment showing

Tucker Signing as a Phonics Instruction Tool to Develop Phonemic Awareness in Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Valbuena, Amanda Carolina

2014-01-01

To develop reading acquisition in an effective way, it is necessary to take into account three goals during the process: automatic word recognition, or development of phonemic awareness, reading comprehension, and a desire for reading. This article focuses on promoting phonemic awareness in English as a second language through a program called…

Using Language Sample Databases

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Heilmann, John J.; Miller, Jon F.; Nockerts, Ann

2010-01-01

Purpose: Over the past 50 years, language sample analysis (LSA) has evolved from a powerful research tool that is used to document children's linguistic development into a powerful clinical tool that is used to identify and describe the language skills of children with language impairment. The Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT; J.…

Concurrency-based approaches to parallel programming

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kale, L.V.; Chrisochoides, N.; Kohl, J.; Yelick, K.

1995-01-01

The inevitable transition to parallel programming can be facilitated by appropriate tools, including languages and libraries. After describing the needs of applications developers, this paper presents three specific approaches aimed at development of efficient and reusable parallel software for irregular and dynamic-structured problems. A salient feature of all three approaches in their exploitation of concurrency within a processor. Benefits of individual approaches such as these can be leveraged by an interoperability environment which permits modules written using different approaches to co-exist in single applications.

Speech and language support: How physicians can identify and treat speech and language delays in the office setting

PubMed Central

Moharir, Madhavi; Barnett, Noel; Taras, Jillian; Cole, Martha; Ford-Jones, E Lee; Levin, Leo

2014-01-01

Failure to recognize and intervene early in speech and language delays can lead to multifaceted and potentially severe consequences for early child development and later literacy skills. While routine evaluations of speech and language during well-child visits are recommended, there is no standardized (office) approach to facilitate this. Furthermore, extensive wait times for speech and language pathology consultation represent valuable lost time for the child and family. Using speech and language expertise, and paediatric collaboration, key content for an office-based tool was developed. The tool aimed to help physicians achieve three main goals: early and accurate identification of speech and language delays as well as children at risk for literacy challenges; appropriate referral to speech and language services when required; and teaching and, thus, empowering parents to create rich and responsive language environments at home. Using this tool, in combination with the Canadian Paediatric Society’s Read, Speak, Sing and Grow Literacy Initiative, physicians will be better positioned to offer practical strategies to caregivers to enhance children’s speech and language capabilities. The tool represents a strategy to evaluate speech and language delays. It depicts age-specific linguistic/phonetic milestones and suggests interventions. The tool represents a practical interim treatment while the family is waiting for formal speech and language therapy consultation. PMID:24627648

Language-Through-Literature; A Literary Language/Language Arts Program for Bilingual Education, ESL and Other Activities in Early Childhood. Books 1 and 2.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

King, Paul; King, Eva

This language-through-literature program is designed to be used as a native language program (language arts/reading readiness), as a second language program, or as a combined native and second language program in early childhood education. Sequentially developed over the year and within each unit, the program is subdivided into 14 units of about…

From Petascale to Exascale: Eight Focus Areas of R&D Challenges for HPC Simulation Environments

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Springmeyer, R; Still, C; Schulz, M

2011-03-17

Programming models bridge the gap between the underlying hardware architecture and the supporting layers of software available to applications. Programming models are different from both programming languages and application programming interfaces (APIs). Specifically, a programming model is an abstraction of the underlying computer system that allows for the expression of both algorithms and data structures. In comparison, languages and APIs provide implementations of these abstractions and allow the algorithms and data structures to be put into practice - a programming model exists independently of the choice of both the programming language and the supporting APIs. Programming models are typically focusedmore » on achieving increased developer productivity, performance, and portability to other system designs. The rapidly changing nature of processor architectures and the complexity of designing an exascale platform provide significant challenges for these goals. Several other factors are likely to impact the design of future programming models. In particular, the representation and management of increasing levels of parallelism, concurrency and memory hierarchies, combined with the ability to maintain a progressive level of interoperability with today's applications are of significant concern. Overall the design of a programming model is inherently tied not only to the underlying hardware architecture, but also to the requirements of applications and libraries including data analysis, visualization, and uncertainty quantification. Furthermore, the successful implementation of a programming model is dependent on exposed features of the runtime software layers and features of the operating system. Successful use of a programming model also requires effective presentation to the software developer within the context of traditional and new software development tools. Consideration must also be given to the impact of programming models on both languages and the associated compiler infrastructure. Exascale programming models must reflect several, often competing, design goals. These design goals include desirable features such as abstraction and separation of concerns. However, some aspects are unique to large-scale computing. For example, interoperability and composability with existing implementations will prove critical. In particular, performance is the essential underlying goal for large-scale systems. A key evaluation metric for exascale models will be the extent to which they support these goals rather than merely enable them.« less

Awakening the Languages. Challenges of Enduring Language Programs: Field Reports from 15 Programs from Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Linn, Mary S.; Naranjo, Tessie; Nicholas, Sheilah; Slaughter, Inee; Yamamoto, Akira; Zepeda, Ofelia

The Indigenous Language Institute (ILI) collaborates with indigenous language communities to combat language decline. ILI facilitates community-based language programs, increases public awareness of language endangerment, and disseminates information on language preservation and successful language revitalization programs. In response to numerous…

Legacy model integration for enhancing hydrologic interdisciplinary research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dozier, A.; Arabi, M.; David, O.

2013-12-01

Many challenges are introduced to interdisciplinary research in and around the hydrologic science community due to advances in computing technology and modeling capabilities in different programming languages, across different platforms and frameworks by researchers in a variety of fields with a variety of experience in computer programming. Many new hydrologic models as well as optimization, parameter estimation, and uncertainty characterization techniques are developed in scripting languages such as Matlab, R, Python, or in newer languages such as Java and the .Net languages, whereas many legacy models have been written in FORTRAN and C, which complicates inter-model communication for two-way feedbacks. However, most hydrologic researchers and industry personnel have little knowledge of the computing technologies that are available to address the model integration process. Therefore, the goal of this study is to address these new challenges by utilizing a novel approach based on a publish-subscribe-type system to enhance modeling capabilities of legacy socio-economic, hydrologic, and ecologic software. Enhancements include massive parallelization of executions and access to legacy model variables at any point during the simulation process by another program without having to compile all the models together into an inseparable 'super-model'. Thus, this study provides two-way feedback mechanisms between multiple different process models that can be written in various programming languages and can run on different machines and operating systems. Additionally, a level of abstraction is given to the model integration process that allows researchers and other technical personnel to perform more detailed and interactive modeling, visualization, optimization, calibration, and uncertainty analysis without requiring deep understanding of inter-process communication. To be compatible, a program must be written in a programming language with bindings to a common implementation of the message passing interface (MPI), which includes FORTRAN, C, Java, the .NET languages, Python, R, Matlab, and many others. The system is tested on a longstanding legacy hydrologic model, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), to observe and enhance speed-up capabilities for various optimization, parameter estimation, and model uncertainty characterization techniques, which is particularly important for computationally intensive hydrologic simulations. Initial results indicate that the legacy extension system significantly decreases developer time, computation time, and the cost of purchasing commercial parallel processing licenses, while enhancing interdisciplinary research by providing detailed two-way feedback mechanisms between various process models with minimal changes to legacy code.

Teaching Computer Languages and Elementary Theory for Mixed Audiences at University Level

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Christiansen, Henning

2004-09-01

Theoretical issues of computer science are traditionally taught in a way that presupposes a solid mathematical background and are usually considered more or less inaccessible for students without this. An effective methodology is described which has been developed for a target group of university students with different backgrounds such as natural science or humanities. It has been developed for a course that integrates theoretical material on computer languages and abstract machines with practical programming techniques. Prolog used as meta-language for describing language issues is the central instrument in the approach: Formal descriptions become running prototypes that are easy and appealing to test and modify, and can be extended into analyzers, interpreters, and tools such as tracers and debuggers. Experience shows a high learning curve, especially when the principles are extended into a learning-by-doing approach having the students to develop such descriptions themselves from an informal introduction.

Tools for automating spacecraft ground systems: The Intelligent Command and Control (ICC) approach

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Stoffel, A. William; Mclean, David

1996-01-01

The practical application of scripting languages and World Wide Web tools to the support of spacecraft ground system automation, is reported on. The mission activities and the automation tools used at the Goddard Space Flight Center (MD) are reviewed. The use of the Tool Command Language (TCL) and the Practical Extraction and Report Language (PERL) scripting tools for automating mission operations is discussed together with the application of different tools for the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory ground system.

Origine et developpement des industries de la langue (Origin and Development of Language Utilities). Publication K-8.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

L'Homme, Marie-Claude

The evolution of "language utilities," a concept confined largely to the francophone world and relating to the uses of language in computer science and the use of computer science for languages, is chronicled. The language utilities are of three types: (1) tools for language development, primarily dictionary databases and related tools;…

Virtual Reality at the PC Level

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dean, John

1998-01-01

The main objective of my research has been to incorporate virtual reality at the desktop level; i.e., create virtual reality software that can be run fairly inexpensively on standard PC's. The standard language used for virtual reality on PC's is VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language). It is a new language so it is still undergoing a lot of changes. VRML 1.0 came out only a couple years ago and VRML 2.0 came out around last September. VRML is an interpreted language that is run by a web browser plug-in. It is fairly flexible in terms of allowing you to create different shapes and animations. Before this summer, I knew very little about virtual reality and I did not know VRML at all. I learned the VRML language by reading two books and experimenting on a PC. The following topics are presented: CAD to VRML, VRML 1.0 to VRML 2.0, VRML authoring tools, VRML browsers, finding virtual reality applications, the AXAF project, the VRML generator program, web communities and future plans.

Practice guidelines for program evaluation in community-based rehabilitation.

PubMed

Grandisson, Marie; Hébert, Michèle; Thibeault, Rachel

2017-06-01

This paper proposes practice guidelines to evaluate community-based rehabilitation (CBR) programs. These were developed through a rigorous three-phase research process including a literature review on good practices in CBR program evaluation, a field study during which a South Africa CBR program was evaluated, and a Delphi study to generate consensus among a highly credible panel of CBR experts from a wide range of backgrounds and geographical areas. The 10 guidelines developed are summarized into a practice model highlighting key features of sound CBR program evaluation. They strongly indicate that sound CBR evaluations are those that give a voice and as much control as possible to the most affected groups, embrace the challenge of diversity, and foster use of evaluation processes and findings through a rigorous, collaborative and empowering approach. The practice guidelines should facilitate CBR evaluation decisions in respect to facilitating an evaluation process, using frameworks and designing methods. Implications for rehabilitation Ten practice guidelines provide guidance to facilitate sound community-based rehabilitation (CBR) program evaluation decisions. Key indications of good practice include: • being as participatory and empowering as possible; • ensuring that all, including the most affected, have a real opportunity to share their thoughts; • highly considering mixed methods and participatory tools; • adapting to fit evaluation context, local culture and language(s); • defining evaluation questions and reporting findings using shared CBR language when possible, which the framework offered may facilitate.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wu, C

Purpose: To implement a novel, automatic, institutional customizable DVH quantities evaluation and PDF report tool on Philips Pinnacle treatment planning system (TPS) Methods: An add-on program (P3DVHStats) is developed by us to enable automatic DVH quantities evaluation (including both volume and dose based quantities, such as V98, V100, D2), and automatic PDF format report generation, for EMR convenience. The implementation is based on a combination of Philips Pinnacle scripting tool and Java language pre-installed on each Pinnacle Sun Solaris workstation. A single Pinnacle script provide user a convenient access to the program when needed. The activated script will first exportmore » DVH data for user selected ROIs from current Pinnacle plan trial; a Java program then provides a simple GUI interface, utilizes the data to compute any user requested DVH quantities, compare with preset institutional DVH planning goals; if accepted by users, the program will also generate a PDF report of the results and export it from Pinnacle to EMR import folder via FTP. Results: The program was tested thoroughly and has been released for clinical use at our institution (Pinnacle Enterprise server with both thin clients and P3PC access), for all dosimetry and physics staff, with excellent feedback. It used to take a few minutes to use MS-Excel worksheet to calculate these DVH quantities for IMRT/VMAT plans, and manually save them as PDF report; with the new program, it literally takes a few mouse clicks in less than 30 seconds to complete the same tasks. Conclusion: A Pinnacle scripting and Java language based program is successfully implemented, customized to our institutional needs. It is shown to dramatically reduce time and effort needed for DVH quantities computing and EMR reporting.« less

The Language Exposure Assessment Tool: Quantifying Language Exposure in Infants and Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

DeAnda, Stephanie; Bosch, Laura; Poulin-Dubois, Diane; Zesiger, Pascal; Friend, Margaret

2016-01-01

Purpose: The aim of this study was to develop the Language Exposure Assessment Tool (LEAT) and to examine its cross-linguistic validity, reliability, and utility. The LEAT is a computerized interview-style assessment that requests parents to estimate language exposure. The LEAT yields an automatic calculation of relative language exposure and…

Overcoming Learning Time and Space Constraints through Technological Tool

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zarei, Nafiseh; Hussin, Supyan; Rashid, Taufik

2015-01-01

Today the use of technological tools has become an evolution in language learning and language acquisition. Many instructors and lecturers believe that integrating Web-based learning tools into language courses allows pupils to become active learners during learning process. This study investigates how the Learning Management Blog (LMB) overcomes…

SYSTID - A flexible tool for the analysis of communication systems.

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dawson, C. T.; Tranter, W. H.

1972-01-01

Description of the System Time Domain Simulation (SYSTID) computer-aided analysis program which is specifically structured for communication systems analysis. The SYSTID program is user oriented so that very little knowledge of computer techniques and very little programming ability are required for proper application. The program is designed so that the user can go from a system block diagram to an accurate simulation by simply programming a single English language statement for each block in the system. The mathematical and functional models available in the SYSTID library are presented. An example problem is given which illustrates the ease of modeling communication systems. Examples of the outputs available are presented, and proposed improvements are summarized.

Building a High Performance Metadata Broker using Clojure, NoSQL and Message Queues

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Truslove, I.; Reed, S.

2013-12-01

In practice, Earth and Space Science Informatics often relies on getting more done with less: fewer hardware resources, less IT staff, fewer lines of code. As a capacity-building exercise focused on rapid development of high-performance geoinformatics software, the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) built a prototype metadata brokering system using a new JVM language, modern database engines and virtualized or cloud computing resources. The metadata brokering system was developed with the overarching goals of (i) demonstrating a technically viable product with as little development effort as possible, (ii) using very new yet very popular tools and technologies in order to get the most value from the least legacy-encumbered code bases, and (iii) being a high-performance system by using scalable subcomponents, and implementation patterns typically used in web architectures. We implemented the system using the Clojure programming language (an interactive, dynamic, Lisp-like JVM language), Redis (a fast in-memory key-value store) as both the data store for original XML metadata content and as the provider for the message queueing service, and ElasticSearch for its search and indexing capabilities to generate search results. On evaluating the results of the prototyping process, we believe that the technical choices did in fact allow us to do more for less, due to the expressive nature of the Clojure programming language and its easy interoperability with Java libraries, and the successful reuse or re-application of high performance products or designs. This presentation will describe the architecture of the metadata brokering system, cover the tools and techniques used, and describe lessons learned, conclusions, and potential next steps.

The SeaHorn Verification Framework

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gurfinkel, Arie; Kahsai, Temesghen; Komuravelli, Anvesh; Navas, Jorge A.

2015-01-01

In this paper, we present SeaHorn, a software verification framework. The key distinguishing feature of SeaHorn is its modular design that separates the concerns of the syntax of the programming language, its operational semantics, and the verification semantics. SeaHorn encompasses several novelties: it (a) encodes verification conditions using an efficient yet precise inter-procedural technique, (b) provides flexibility in the verification semantics to allow different levels of precision, (c) leverages the state-of-the-art in software model checking and abstract interpretation for verification, and (d) uses Horn-clauses as an intermediate language to represent verification conditions which simplifies interfacing with multiple verification tools based on Horn-clauses. SeaHorn provides users with a powerful verification tool and researchers with an extensible and customizable framework for experimenting with new software verification techniques. The effectiveness and scalability of SeaHorn are demonstrated by an extensive experimental evaluation using benchmarks from SV-COMP 2015 and real avionics code.

Novel Multiscale Modeling Tool Applied to Pseudomonas aeruginosa Biofilm Formation

PubMed Central

Biggs, Matthew B.; Papin, Jason A.

2013-01-01

Multiscale modeling is used to represent biological systems with increasing frequency and success. Multiscale models are often hybrids of different modeling frameworks and programming languages. We present the MATLAB-NetLogo extension (MatNet) as a novel tool for multiscale modeling. We demonstrate the utility of the tool with a multiscale model of Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm formation that incorporates both an agent-based model (ABM) and constraint-based metabolic modeling. The hybrid model correctly recapitulates oxygen-limited biofilm metabolic activity and predicts increased growth rate via anaerobic respiration with the addition of nitrate to the growth media. In addition, a genome-wide survey of metabolic mutants and biofilm formation exemplifies the powerful analyses that are enabled by this computational modeling tool. PMID:24147108

Novel multiscale modeling tool applied to Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm formation.

PubMed

Biggs, Matthew B; Papin, Jason A

2013-01-01

Multiscale modeling is used to represent biological systems with increasing frequency and success. Multiscale models are often hybrids of different modeling frameworks and programming languages. We present the MATLAB-NetLogo extension (MatNet) as a novel tool for multiscale modeling. We demonstrate the utility of the tool with a multiscale model of Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm formation that incorporates both an agent-based model (ABM) and constraint-based metabolic modeling. The hybrid model correctly recapitulates oxygen-limited biofilm metabolic activity and predicts increased growth rate via anaerobic respiration with the addition of nitrate to the growth media. In addition, a genome-wide survey of metabolic mutants and biofilm formation exemplifies the powerful analyses that are enabled by this computational modeling tool.

DoD Key Technologies Plan

DTIC Science & Technology

1992-07-01

methodologies ; software performance analysis; software testing; and concurrent languages. Finally, efforts in algorithms, which are primarily designed to upgrade...These codes provide a powerful research tool for testing new concepts and designs prior to experimental implementation. DoE’s laser program has also...development, and specially designed production facilities. World leadership in bth non -fluorinated and fluorinated materials resides in the U.S. but Japan

The Use of Technology in the Promotion of Children's Emotional Intelligence: The Multimedia Program "Developing Emotional Intelligence"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

D'Amico, Antonella

2018-01-01

"Developing Emotional Intelligence" is an Italian language multimedia tool created for children between 8 and 12 years of age. The software is based on the four 'branches' of model of emotional intelligence proposed by Mayer and Salovey and aims to evaluate and improve abilities in perception of emotions; using emotion to facilitate…

"A Chimera of Sorts": Rethinking Educational Technology Grant Programs, Courseware Innovation, and the Language of Educational Change

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wolff, William I.

2008-01-01

How do we know when an educational organization, process, or courseware tool is "innovative"? How do we define the processes that encourage change or the ways in which faculty "develop" new courseware "innovations"? The terms "innovation", "change", and "development" have been overused in so many contexts that they now seem to have lost their…

A Correlation of Quality Reviews and Fourth Grade Performance in English Language Arts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sutherland, Ann V.

2012-01-01

This study was conducted to determine if there is a relationship between two of New York City's accountability tools, and, if so, to what the extent this correlation exists. The ongoing calls for school reform have left individual states and school systems initiating one program after another in an effort to improve student achievement. New York…

Improve Problem Solving Skills through Adapting Programming Tools

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shaykhian, Linda H.; Shaykhian, Gholam Ali

2007-01-01

There are numerous ways for engineers and students to become better problem-solvers. The use of command line and visual programming tools can help to model a problem and formulate a solution through visualization. The analysis of problem attributes and constraints provide insight into the scope and complexity of the problem. The visualization aspect of the problem-solving approach tends to make students and engineers more systematic in their thought process and help them catch errors before proceeding too far in the wrong direction. The problem-solver identifies and defines important terms, variables, rules, and procedures required for solving a problem. Every step required to construct the problem solution can be defined in program commands that produce intermediate output. This paper advocates improved problem solving skills through using a programming tool. MatLab created by MathWorks, is an interactive numerical computing environment and programming language. It is a matrix-based system that easily lends itself to matrix manipulation, and plotting of functions and data. MatLab can be used as an interactive command line or a sequence of commands that can be saved in a file as a script or named functions. Prior programming experience is not required to use MatLab commands. The GNU Octave, part of the GNU project, a free computer program for performing numerical computations, is comparable to MatLab. MatLab visual and command programming are presented here.

Speech and language support: How physicians can identify and treat speech and language delays in the office setting.

PubMed

Moharir, Madhavi; Barnett, Noel; Taras, Jillian; Cole, Martha; Ford-Jones, E Lee; Levin, Leo

2014-01-01

Failure to recognize and intervene early in speech and language delays can lead to multifaceted and potentially severe consequences for early child development and later literacy skills. While routine evaluations of speech and language during well-child visits are recommended, there is no standardized (office) approach to facilitate this. Furthermore, extensive wait times for speech and language pathology consultation represent valuable lost time for the child and family. Using speech and language expertise, and paediatric collaboration, key content for an office-based tool was developed. early and accurate identification of speech and language delays as well as children at risk for literacy challenges; appropriate referral to speech and language services when required; and teaching and, thus, empowering parents to create rich and responsive language environments at home. Using this tool, in combination with the Canadian Paediatric Society's Read, Speak, Sing and Grow Literacy Initiative, physicians will be better positioned to offer practical strategies to caregivers to enhance children's speech and language capabilities. The tool represents a strategy to evaluate speech and language delays. It depicts age-specific linguistic/phonetic milestones and suggests interventions. The tool represents a practical interim treatment while the family is waiting for formal speech and language therapy consultation.

A Framework for Sentiment Analysis Implementation of Indonesian Language Tweet on Twitter

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Asniar; Aditya, B. R.

2017-01-01

Sentiment analysis is the process of understanding, extracting, and processing the textual data automatically to obtain information. Sentiment analysis can be used to see opinion on an issue and identify a response to something. Millions of digital data are still not used to be able to provide any information that has usefulness, especially for government. Sentiment analysis in government is used to monitor the work programs of the government such as the Government of Bandung City through social media data. The analysis can be used quickly as a tool to see the public response to the work programs, so the next strategic steps can be taken. This paper adopts Support Vector Machine as a supervised algorithm for sentiment analysis. It presents a framework for sentiment analysis implementation of Indonesian language tweet on twitter for Work Programs of Government of Bandung City. The results of this paper can be a reference for decision making in local government.

Engineering and Scientific Applications: Using MatLab(Registered Trademark) for Data Processing and Visualization

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sen, Syamal K.; Shaykhian, Gholam Ali

2011-01-01

MatLab(R) (MATrix LABoratory) is a numerical computation and simulation tool that is used by thousands Scientists and Engineers in many cou ntries. MatLab does purely numerical calculations, which can be used as a glorified calculator or interpreter programming language; its re al strength is in matrix manipulations. Computer algebra functionalities are achieved within the MatLab environment using "symbolic" toolbo x. This feature is similar to computer algebra programs, provided by Maple or Mathematica to calculate with mathematical equations using s ymbolic operations. MatLab in its interpreter programming language fo rm (command interface) is similar with well known programming languag es such as C/C++, support data structures and cell arrays to define c lasses in object oriented programming. As such, MatLab is equipped with most ofthe essential constructs of a higher programming language. M atLab is packaged with an editor and debugging functionality useful t o perform analysis of large MatLab programs and find errors. We belie ve there are many ways to approach real-world problems; prescribed methods to ensure foregoing solutions are incorporated in design and ana lysis of data processing and visualization can benefit engineers and scientist in gaining wider insight in actual implementation of their perspective experiments. This presentation will focus on data processing and visualizations aspects of engineering and scientific applicati ons. Specifically, it will discuss methods and techniques to perform intermediate-level data processing covering engineering and scientifi c problems. MatLab programming techniques including reading various data files formats to produce customized publication-quality graphics, importing engineering and/or scientific data, organizing data in tabu lar format, exporting data to be used by other software programs such as Microsoft Excel, data presentation and visualization will be discussed. The presentation will emphasize creating practIcal scripts (pro grams) that extend the basic features of MatLab TOPICS mclude (1) Ma trix and vector analysis and manipulations (2) Mathematical functions (3) Symbolic calculations & functions (4) Import/export data files (5) Program lOgic and flow control (6) Writing function and passing parameters (7) Test application programs

LevelScheme: A level scheme drawing and scientific figure preparation system for Mathematica

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Caprio, M. A.

2005-09-01

LevelScheme is a scientific figure preparation system for Mathematica. The main emphasis is upon the construction of level schemes, or level energy diagrams, as used in nuclear, atomic, molecular, and hadronic physics. LevelScheme also provides a general infrastructure for the preparation of publication-quality figures, including support for multipanel and inset plotting, customizable tick mark generation, and various drawing and labeling tasks. Coupled with Mathematica's plotting functions and powerful programming language, LevelScheme provides a flexible system for the creation of figures combining diagrams, mathematical plots, and data plots. Program summaryTitle of program:LevelScheme Catalogue identifier:ADVZ Program obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen's University of Belfast, N. Ireland Program summary URL:http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/ADVZ Operating systems:Any which supports Mathematica; tested under Microsoft Windows XP, Macintosh OS X, and Linux Programming language used:Mathematica 4 Number of bytes in distributed program, including test and documentation:3 051 807 Distribution format:tar.gz Nature of problem:Creation of level scheme diagrams. Creation of publication-quality multipart figures incorporating diagrams and plots. Method of solution:A set of Mathematica packages has been developed, providing a library of level scheme drawing objects, tools for figure construction and labeling, and control code for producing the graphics.

A Review of Language: The Cultural Tool by Daniel L. Everett

PubMed Central

Weitzman, Raymond S.

2013-01-01

Language: The Cultural Tool by Daniel Everett covers a broad spectrum of issues concerning the nature of language from the perspective of an anthropological linguist who has had considerable fieldwork experience studying the language and culture of the Pirahã, an indigenous Amazonian tribe in Brazil, as well as a number of other indigenous languages and cultures. This review focuses mainly on the key elements of his approach to language: language as a solution to the communication problem; Everett's conception of language; what makes language possible; how language and culture influence each other.

25 CFR 39.132 - Can a school integrate Language Development programs into its regular instructional program?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-04-01

... 25 Indians 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Can a school integrate Language Development programs into... Language Development Programs § 39.132 Can a school integrate Language Development programs into its regular instructional program? A school may offer Language Development programs to students as part of its...

25 CFR 39.132 - Can a school integrate Language Development programs into its regular instructional program?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-04-01

... 25 Indians 1 2011-04-01 2011-04-01 false Can a school integrate Language Development programs into... Language Development Programs § 39.132 Can a school integrate Language Development programs into its regular instructional program? A school may offer Language Development programs to students as part of its...

Applying a visual language for image processing as a graphical teaching tool in medical imaging

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Birchman, James J.; Tanimoto, Steven L.; Rowberg, Alan H.; Choi, Hyung-Sik; Kim, Yongmin

1992-05-01

Typical user interaction in image processing is with command line entries, pull-down menus, or text menu selections from a list, and as such is not generally graphical in nature. Although applying these interactive methods to construct more sophisticated algorithms from a series of simple image processing steps may be clear to engineers and programmers, it may not be clear to clinicians. A solution to this problem is to implement a visual programming language using visual representations to express image processing algorithms. Visual representations promote a more natural and rapid understanding of image processing algorithms by providing more visual insight into what the algorithms do than the interactive methods mentioned above can provide. Individuals accustomed to dealing with images will be more likely to understand an algorithm that is represented visually. This is especially true of referring physicians, such as surgeons in an intensive care unit. With the increasing acceptance of picture archiving and communications system (PACS) workstations and the trend toward increasing clinical use of image processing, referring physicians will need to learn more sophisticated concepts than simply image access and display. If the procedures that they perform commonly, such as window width and window level adjustment and image enhancement using unsharp masking, are depicted visually in an interactive environment, it will be easier for them to learn and apply these concepts. The software described in this paper is a visual programming language for imaging processing which has been implemented on the NeXT computer using NeXTstep user interface development tools and other tools in an object-oriented environment. The concept is based upon the description of a visual language titled `Visualization of Vision Algorithms' (VIVA). Iconic representations of simple image processing steps are placed into a workbench screen and connected together into a dataflow path by the user. As the user creates and edits a dataflow path, more complex algorithms can be built on the screen. Once the algorithm is built, it can be executed, its results can be reviewed, and operator parameters can be interactively adjusted until an optimized output is produced. The optimized algorithm can then be saved and added to the system as a new operator. This system has been evaluated as a graphical teaching tool for window width and window level adjustment, image enhancement using unsharp masking, and other techniques.

The International Language Portfolio: Appropriating a Tool for Learner Empowerment from the Council of Europe.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Templar, Bill

2002-01-01

Foreign language educators need creative tools to empower students to make the languages they are learning truly their own. One such new instrument well worth inventive appropriation in Asia is the European Language Portfolio (ELP), launched by the Council of Europe in 2001. This report focuses on the three parts of ELP--a language passport,…

Using Films in Vocabulary Teaching of Turkish as a Foreign Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Iscan, Adem

2017-01-01

The use and utility of auditory and visual tools in language teaching is a common practice. Films constitute one of the tools. It has been found that using films in language teaching is also effective in the development of vocabulary of foreign language learners. The literature review reveals that while films are used in foreign language teaching…

Array data extractor (ADE): a LabVIEW program to extract and merge gene array data.

PubMed

Kurtenbach, Stefan; Kurtenbach, Sarah; Zoidl, Georg

2013-12-01

Large data sets from gene expression array studies are publicly available offering information highly valuable for research across many disciplines ranging from fundamental to clinical research. Highly advanced bioinformatics tools have been made available to researchers, but a demand for user-friendly software allowing researchers to quickly extract expression information for multiple genes from multiple studies persists. Here, we present a user-friendly LabVIEW program to automatically extract gene expression data for a list of genes from multiple normalized microarray datasets. Functionality was tested for 288 class A G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and expression data from 12 studies comparing normal and diseased human hearts. Results confirmed known regulation of a beta 1 adrenergic receptor and further indicate novel research targets. Although existing software allows for complex data analyses, the LabVIEW based program presented here, "Array Data Extractor (ADE)", provides users with a tool to retrieve meaningful information from multiple normalized gene expression datasets in a fast and easy way. Further, the graphical programming language used in LabVIEW allows applying changes to the program without the need of advanced programming knowledge.

25 CFR 39.136 - What is the WSU for Language Development programs?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-04-01

... 25 Indians 1 2011-04-01 2011-04-01 false What is the WSU for Language Development programs? 39.136... EQUALIZATION PROGRAM Indian School Equalization Formula Language Development Programs § 39.136 What is the WSU for Language Development programs? Language Development programs are funded at 0.13 WSUs per student. ...

Open-Source Assisted Laboratory Automation through Graphical User Interfaces and 3D Printers: Application to Equipment Hyphenation for Higher-Order Data Generation.

PubMed

Siano, Gabriel G; Montemurro, Milagros; Alcaráz, Mirta R; Goicoechea, Héctor C

2017-10-17

Higher-order data generation implies some automation challenges, which are mainly related to the hidden programming languages and electronic details of the equipment. When techniques and/or equipment hyphenation are the key to obtaining higher-order data, the required simultaneous control of them demands funds for new hardware, software, and licenses, in addition to very skilled operators. In this work, we present Design of Inputs-Outputs with Sikuli (DIOS), a free and open-source code program that provides a general framework for the design of automated experimental procedures without prior knowledge of programming or electronics. Basically, instruments and devices are considered as nodes in a network, and every node is associated both with physical and virtual inputs and outputs. Virtual components, such as graphical user interfaces (GUIs) of equipment, are handled by means of image recognition tools provided by Sikuli scripting language, while handling of their physical counterparts is achieved using an adapted open-source three-dimensional (3D) printer. Two previously reported experiments of our research group, related to fluorescence matrices derived from kinetics and high-performance liquid chromatography, were adapted to be carried out in a more automated fashion. Satisfactory results, in terms of analytical performance, were obtained. Similarly, advantages derived from open-source tools assistance could be appreciated, mainly in terms of lesser intervention of operators and cost savings.

Data acquisition and real-time control using spreadsheets: interfacing Excel with external hardware.

PubMed

Aliane, Nourdine

2010-07-01

Spreadsheets have become a popular computational tool and a powerful platform for performing engineering calculations. Moreover, spreadsheets include a macro language, which permits the inclusion of standard computer code in worksheets, and thereby enable developers to greatly extend spreadsheets' capabilities by designing specific add-ins. This paper describes how to use Excel spreadsheets in conjunction to Visual Basic for Application programming language to perform data acquisition and real-time control. Afterwards, the paper presents two Excel applications with interactive user interfaces developed for laboratory demonstrations and experiments in an introductory course in control. 2010 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

ProjectQ Software Framework

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Steiger, Damian S.; Haener, Thomas; Troyer, Matthias

Quantum computers promise to transform our notions of computation by offering a completely new paradigm. A high level quantum programming language and optimizing compilers are essential components to achieve scalable quantum computation. In order to address this, we introduce the ProjectQ software framework - an open source effort to support both theorists and experimentalists by providing intuitive tools to implement and run quantum algorithms. Here, we present our ProjectQ quantum compiler, which compiles a quantum algorithm from our high-level Python-embedded language down to low-level quantum gates available on the target system. We demonstrate how this compiler can be used to control actual hardware and to run high-performance simulations.

A Module Language for Typing by Contracts

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Glouche, Yann; Talpin, Jean-Pierre; LeGuernic, Paul; Gautier, Thierry

2009-01-01

Assume-guarantee reasoning is a popular and expressive paradigm for modular and compositional specification of programs. It is becoming a fundamental concept in some computer-aided design tools for embedded system design. In this paper, we elaborate foundations for contract-based embedded system design by proposing a general-purpose module language based on a Boolean algebra allowing to define contracts. In this framework, contracts are used to negotiate the correctness of assumptions made on the definition of a component at the point where it is used and provides guarantees to its environment. We illustrate this presentation with the specification of a simplified 4-stroke engine model.

Program Management Tool

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gawadiak, Yuri; Wong, Alan; Maluf, David; Bell, David; Gurram, Mohana; Tran, Khai Peter; Hsu, Jennifer; Yagi, Kenji; Patel, Hemil

2007-01-01

The Program Management Tool (PMT) is a comprehensive, Web-enabled business intelligence software tool for assisting program and project managers within NASA enterprises in gathering, comprehending, and disseminating information on the progress of their programs and projects. The PMT provides planning and management support for implementing NASA programmatic and project management processes and requirements. It provides an online environment for program and line management to develop, communicate, and manage their programs, projects, and tasks in a comprehensive tool suite. The information managed by use of the PMT can include monthly reports as well as data on goals, deliverables, milestones, business processes, personnel, task plans, monthly reports, and budgetary allocations. The PMT provides an intuitive and enhanced Web interface to automate the tedious process of gathering and sharing monthly progress reports, task plans, financial data, and other information on project resources based on technical, schedule, budget, and management criteria and merits. The PMT is consistent with the latest Web standards and software practices, including the use of Extensible Markup Language (XML) for exchanging data and the WebDAV (Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning) protocol for collaborative management of documents. The PMT provides graphical displays of resource allocations in the form of bar and pie charts using Microsoft Excel Visual Basic for Application (VBA) libraries. The PMT has an extensible architecture that enables integration of PMT with other strategic-information software systems, including, for example, the Erasmus reporting system, now part of the NASA Integrated Enterprise Management Program (IEMP) tool suite, at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). The PMT data architecture provides automated and extensive software interfaces and reports to various strategic information systems to eliminate duplicative human entries and minimize data integrity issues among various NASA systems that impact schedules and planning.

Web-Based Machine Translation as a Tool for Promoting Electronic Literacy and Language Awareness

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Williams, Lawrence

2006-01-01

This article addresses a pervasive problem of concern to teachers of many foreign languages: the use of Web-Based Machine Translation (WBMT) by students who do not understand the complexities of this relatively new tool. Although networked technologies have greatly increased access to many language and communication tools, WBMT is still…

NSTX-U Advances in Real-Time C++11 on Linux

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Erickson, Keith G.

2015-08-01

Programming languages like C and Ada combined with proprietary embedded operating systems have dominated the real-time application space for decades. The new C++11 standard includes native, language-level support for concurrency, a required feature for any nontrivial event-oriented real-time software. Threads, Locks, and Atomics now exist to provide the necessary tools to build the structures that make up the foundation of a complex real-time system. The National Spherical Torus Experiment Upgrade (NSTX-U) at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) is breaking new ground with the language as applied to the needs of fusion devices. A new Digital Coil Protection System (DCPS) will serve as the main protection mechanism for the magnetic coils, and it is written entirely in C++11 running on Concurrent Computer Corporation's real-time operating system, RedHawk Linux. It runs over 600 algorithms in a 5 kHz control loop that determine whether or not to shut down operations before physical damage occurs. To accomplish this, NSTX-U engineers developed software tools that do not currently exist elsewhere, including real-time atomic synchronization, real-time containers, and a real-time logging framework. Together with a recent (and carefully configured) version of the GCC compiler, these tools enable data acquisition, processing, and output using a conventional operating system to meet a hard real-time deadline (that is, missing one periodic is a failure) of 200 microseconds.

CLIPS - C LANGUAGE INTEGRATED PRODUCTION SYSTEM (IBM PC VERSION)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Riley, G.

1994-01-01

The C Language Integrated Production System, CLIPS, is a shell for developing expert systems. It is designed to allow artificial intelligence research, development, and delivery on conventional computers. The primary design goals for CLIPS are portability, efficiency, and functionality. For these reasons, the program is written in C. CLIPS meets or outperforms most micro- and minicomputer based artificial intelligence tools. CLIPS is a forward chaining rule-based language. The program contains an inference engine and a language syntax that provide a framework for the construction of an expert system. It also includes tools for debugging an application. CLIPS is based on the Rete algorithm, which enables very efficient pattern matching. The collection of conditions and actions to be taken if the conditions are met is constructed into a rule network. As facts are asserted either prior to or during a session, CLIPS pattern-matches the number of fields. Wildcards and variables are supported for both single and multiple fields. CLIPS syntax allows the inclusion of externally defined functions (outside functions which are written in a language other than CLIPS). CLIPS itself can be embedded in a program such that the expert system is available as a simple subroutine call. Advanced features found in CLIPS version 4.3 include an integrated microEMACS editor, the ability to generate C source code from a CLIPS rule base to produce a dedicated executable, binary load and save capabilities for CLIPS rule bases, and the utility program CRSV (Cross-Reference, Style, and Verification) designed to facilitate the development and maintenance of large rule bases. Five machine versions are available. Each machine version includes the source and the executable for that machine. The UNIX version includes the source and binaries for IBM RS/6000, Sun3 series, and Sun4 series computers. The UNIX, DEC VAX, and DEC RISC Workstation versions are line oriented. The PC version and the Macintosh version each contain a windowing variant of CLIPS as well as the standard line oriented version. The mouse/window interface version for the PC works with a Microsoft compatible mouse or without a mouse. This window version uses the proprietary CURSES library for the PC, but a working executable of the window version is provided. The window oriented version for the Macintosh includes a version which uses a full Macintosh-style interface, including an integrated editor. This version allows the user to observe the changing fact base and rule activations in separate windows while a CLIPS program is executing. The IBM PC version is available bundled with CLIPSITS, The CLIPS Intelligent Tutoring System for a special combined price (COS-10025). The goal of CLIPSITS is to provide the student with a tool to practice the syntax and concepts covered in the CLIPS User's Guide. It attempts to provide expert diagnosis and advice during problem solving which is typically not available without an instructor. CLIPSITS is divided into 10 lessons which mirror the first 10 chapters of the CLIPS User's Guide. The program was developed for the IBM PC series with a hard disk. CLIPSITS is also available separately as MSC-21679. The CLIPS program is written in C for interactive execution and has been implemented on an IBM PC computer operating under DOS, a Macintosh and DEC VAX series computers operating under VMS or ULTRIX. The line oriented version should run on any computer system which supports a full (Kernighan and Ritchie) C compiler or the ANSI standard C language. CLIPS was developed in 1986 and Version 4.2 was released in July of 1988. Version 4.3 was released in June of 1989.

CLIPS - C LANGUAGE INTEGRATED PRODUCTION SYSTEM (MACINTOSH VERSION)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Culbert, C.

1994-01-01

The C Language Integrated Production System, CLIPS, is a shell for developing expert systems. It is designed to allow artificial intelligence research, development, and delivery on conventional computers. The primary design goals for CLIPS are portability, efficiency, and functionality. For these reasons, the program is written in C. CLIPS meets or outperforms most micro- and minicomputer based artificial intelligence tools. CLIPS is a forward chaining rule-based language. The program contains an inference engine and a language syntax that provide a framework for the construction of an expert system. It also includes tools for debugging an application. CLIPS is based on the Rete algorithm, which enables very efficient pattern matching. The collection of conditions and actions to be taken if the conditions are met is constructed into a rule network. As facts are asserted either prior to or during a session, CLIPS pattern-matches the number of fields. Wildcards and variables are supported for both single and multiple fields. CLIPS syntax allows the inclusion of externally defined functions (outside functions which are written in a language other than CLIPS). CLIPS itself can be embedded in a program such that the expert system is available as a simple subroutine call. Advanced features found in CLIPS version 4.3 include an integrated microEMACS editor, the ability to generate C source code from a CLIPS rule base to produce a dedicated executable, binary load and save capabilities for CLIPS rule bases, and the utility program CRSV (Cross-Reference, Style, and Verification) designed to facilitate the development and maintenance of large rule bases. Five machine versions are available. Each machine version includes the source and the executable for that machine. The UNIX version includes the source and binaries for IBM RS/6000, Sun3 series, and Sun4 series computers. The UNIX, DEC VAX, and DEC RISC Workstation versions are line oriented. The PC version and the Macintosh version each contain a windowing variant of CLIPS as well as the standard line oriented version. The mouse/window interface version for the PC works with a Microsoft compatible mouse or without a mouse. This window version uses the proprietary CURSES library for the PC, but a working executable of the window version is provided. The window oriented version for the Macintosh includes a version which uses a full Macintosh-style interface, including an integrated editor. This version allows the user to observe the changing fact base and rule activations in separate windows while a CLIPS program is executing. The IBM PC version is available bundled with CLIPSITS, The CLIPS Intelligent Tutoring System for a special combined price (COS-10025). The goal of CLIPSITS is to provide the student with a tool to practice the syntax and concepts covered in the CLIPS User's Guide. It attempts to provide expert diagnosis and advice during problem solving which is typically not available without an instructor. CLIPSITS is divided into 10 lessons which mirror the first 10 chapters of the CLIPS User's Guide. The program was developed for the IBM PC series with a hard disk. CLIPSITS is also available separately as MSC-21679. The CLIPS program is written in C for interactive execution and has been implemented on an IBM PC computer operating under DOS, a Macintosh and DEC VAX series computers operating under VMS or ULTRIX. The line oriented version should run on any computer system which supports a full (Kernighan and Ritchie) C compiler or the ANSI standard C language. CLIPS was developed in 1986 and Version 4.2 was released in July of 1988. Version 4.3 was released in June of 1989.

CLIPS - C LANGUAGE INTEGRATED PRODUCTION SYSTEM (IBM PC VERSION WITH CLIPSITS)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Riley, , .

1994-01-01

The C Language Integrated Production System, CLIPS, is a shell for developing expert systems. It is designed to allow artificial intelligence research, development, and delivery on conventional computers. The primary design goals for CLIPS are portability, efficiency, and functionality. For these reasons, the program is written in C. CLIPS meets or outperforms most micro- and minicomputer based artificial intelligence tools. CLIPS is a forward chaining rule-based language. The program contains an inference engine and a language syntax that provide a framework for the construction of an expert system. It also includes tools for debugging an application. CLIPS is based on the Rete algorithm, which enables very efficient pattern matching. The collection of conditions and actions to be taken if the conditions are met is constructed into a rule network. As facts are asserted either prior to or during a session, CLIPS pattern-matches the number of fields. Wildcards and variables are supported for both single and multiple fields. CLIPS syntax allows the inclusion of externally defined functions (outside functions which are written in a language other than CLIPS). CLIPS itself can be embedded in a program such that the expert system is available as a simple subroutine call. Advanced features found in CLIPS version 4.3 include an integrated microEMACS editor, the ability to generate C source code from a CLIPS rule base to produce a dedicated executable, binary load and save capabilities for CLIPS rule bases, and the utility program CRSV (Cross-Reference, Style, and Verification) designed to facilitate the development and maintenance of large rule bases. Five machine versions are available. Each machine version includes the source and the executable for that machine. The UNIX version includes the source and binaries for IBM RS/6000, Sun3 series, and Sun4 series computers. The UNIX, DEC VAX, and DEC RISC Workstation versions are line oriented. The PC version and the Macintosh version each contain a windowing variant of CLIPS as well as the standard line oriented version. The mouse/window interface version for the PC works with a Microsoft compatible mouse or without a mouse. This window version uses the proprietary CURSES library for the PC, but a working executable of the window version is provided. The window oriented version for the Macintosh includes a version which uses a full Macintosh-style interface, including an integrated editor. This version allows the user to observe the changing fact base and rule activations in separate windows while a CLIPS program is executing. The IBM PC version is available bundled with CLIPSITS, The CLIPS Intelligent Tutoring System for a special combined price (COS-10025). The goal of CLIPSITS is to provide the student with a tool to practice the syntax and concepts covered in the CLIPS User's Guide. It attempts to provide expert diagnosis and advice during problem solving which is typically not available without an instructor. CLIPSITS is divided into 10 lessons which mirror the first 10 chapters of the CLIPS User's Guide. The program was developed for the IBM PC series with a hard disk. CLIPSITS is also available separately as MSC-21679. The CLIPS program is written in C for interactive execution and has been implemented on an IBM PC computer operating under DOS, a Macintosh and DEC VAX series computers operating under VMS or ULTRIX. The line oriented version should run on any computer system which supports a full (Kernighan and Ritchie) C compiler or the ANSI standard C language. CLIPS was developed in 1986 and Version 4.2 was released in July of 1988. Version 4.3 was released in June of 1989.

Assessing Foreign Language Proficiency of Undergraduates. Issues in Language Program Direction: A Series of Annual Volumes.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Teschner, Richard V., Ed.

This collection of papers includes: "Foreign Language Testing Today: Issues in Language Program Direction" (Frank Nuessel); "Assessing the Problems of Assessment" (M. Peter Hagiwara); "Testing in Foreign Language Programs and Testing Programs in Foreign Language Departments: Reflections and Recommendations" (Elizabeth…

Using PHP/MySQL to Manage Potential Mass Impacts

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hager, Benjamin I.

2010-01-01

This paper presents a new application using commercially available software to manage mass properties for spaceflight vehicles. PHP/MySQL(PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor and My Structured Query Language) are a web scripting language and a database language commonly used in concert with each other. They open up new opportunities to develop cutting edge mass properties tools, and in particular, tools for the management of potential mass impacts (threats and opportunities). The paper begins by providing an overview of the functions and capabilities of PHP/MySQL. The focus of this paper is on how PHP/MySQL are being used to develop an advanced "web accessible" database system for identifying and managing mass impacts on NASA's Ares I Upper Stage program, managed by the Marshall Space Flight Center. To fully describe this application, examples of the data, search functions, and views are provided to promote, not only the function, but the security, ease of use, simplicity, and eye-appeal of this new application. This paper concludes with an overview of the other potential mass properties applications and tools that could be developed using PHP/MySQL. The premise behind this paper is that PHP/MySQL are software tools that are easy to use and readily available for the development of cutting edge mass properties applications. These tools are capable of providing "real-time" searching and status of an active database, automated report generation, and other capabilities to streamline and enhance mass properties management application. By using PHP/MySQL, proven existing methods for managing mass properties can be adapted to present-day information technology to accelerate mass properties data gathering, analysis, and reporting, allowing mass property management to keep pace with today's fast-pace design and development processes.

Your Personal Analysis Toolkit - An Open Source Solution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mitchell, T.

2009-12-01

Open source software is commonly known for its web browsers, word processors and programming languages. However, there is a vast array of open source software focused on geographic information management and geospatial application building in general. As geo-professionals, having easy access to tools for our jobs is crucial. Open source software provides the opportunity to add a tool to your tool belt and carry it with you for your entire career - with no license fees, a supportive community and the opportunity to test, adopt and upgrade at your own pace. OSGeo is a US registered non-profit representing more than a dozen mature geospatial data management applications and programming resources. Tools cover areas such as desktop GIS, web-based mapping frameworks, metadata cataloging, spatial database analysis, image processing and more. Learn about some of these tools as they apply to AGU members, as well as how you can join OSGeo and its members in getting the job done with powerful open source tools. If you haven't heard of OSSIM, MapServer, OpenLayers, PostGIS, GRASS GIS or the many other projects under our umbrella - then you need to hear this talk. Invest in yourself - use open source!

[Development of a Text-Data Based Learning Tool That Integrates Image Processing and Displaying].

PubMed

Shinohara, Hiroyuki; Hashimoto, Takeyuki

2015-01-01

We developed a text-data based learning tool that integrates image processing and displaying by Excel. Knowledge required for programing this tool is limited to using absolute, relative, and composite cell references and learning approximately 20 mathematical functions available in Excel. The new tool is capable of resolution translation, geometric transformation, spatial-filter processing, Radon transform, Fourier transform, convolutions, correlations, deconvolutions, wavelet transform, mutual information, and simulation of proton density-, T1-, and T2-weighted MR images. The processed images of 128 x 128 pixels or 256 x 256 pixels are observed directly within Excel worksheets without using any particular image display software. The results of image processing using this tool were compared with those using C language and the new tool was judged to have sufficient accuracy to be practically useful. The images displayed on Excel worksheets were compared with images using binary-data display software. This comparison indicated that the image quality of the Excel worksheets was nearly equal to the latter in visual impressions. Since image processing is performed by using text-data, the process is visible and facilitates making contrasts by using mathematical equations within the program. We concluded that the newly developed tool is adequate as a computer-assisted learning tool for use in medical image processing.

Construction of an advanced software tool for planetary atmospheric modeling

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Friedland, Peter; Keller, Richard M.; Mckay, Christopher P.; Sims, Michael H.; Thompson, David E.

1993-01-01

Scientific model-building can be a time intensive and painstaking process, often involving the development of large complex computer programs. Despite the effort involved, scientific models cannot be distributed easily and shared with other scientists. In general, implemented scientific models are complicated, idiosyncratic, and difficult for anyone but the original scientist/programmer to understand. We propose to construct a scientific modeling software tool that serves as an aid to the scientist in developing, using and sharing models. The proposed tool will include an interactive intelligent graphical interface and a high-level domain-specific modeling language. As a testbed for this research, we propose to develop a software prototype in the domain of planetary atmospheric modeling.

Construction of an advanced software tool for planetary atmospheric modeling

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Friedland, Peter; Keller, Richard M.; Mckay, Christopher P.; Sims, Michael H.; Thompson, David E.

1992-01-01

Scientific model-building can be a time intensive and painstaking process, often involving the development of large complex computer programs. Despite the effort involved, scientific models cannot be distributed easily and shared with other scientists. In general, implemented scientific models are complicated, idiosyncratic, and difficult for anyone but the original scientist/programmer to understand. We propose to construct a scientific modeling software tool that serves as an aid to the scientist in developing, using and sharing models. The proposed tool will include an interactive intelligent graphical interface and a high-level domain-specific modeling language. As a test bed for this research, we propose to develop a software prototype in the domain of planetary atmospheric modeling.

25 CFR 39.131 - What is a Language Development Program?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-04-01

... EQUALIZATION PROGRAM Indian School Equalization Formula Language Development Programs § 39.131 What is a Language Development Program? A Language Development program is one that serves students who either: (a...

25 CFR 39.131 - What is a Language Development Program?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-04-01

... EQUALIZATION PROGRAM Indian School Equalization Formula Language Development Programs § 39.131 What is a Language Development Program? A Language Development program is one that serves students who either: (a...

25 CFR 39.131 - What is a Language Development Program?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-04-01

... EQUALIZATION PROGRAM Indian School Equalization Formula Language Development Programs § 39.131 What is a Language Development Program? A Language Development program is one that serves students who either: (a...

Research Issues and Language Program Direction. Issues in Language Program Direction: A Series of Annual Volumes.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Heilenman, L. Kathy, Ed.

This collection of papers is divided into two parts. After "Introduction" (L. Kathy Heilenman), Part 1, "Research and Language Program Directors: The Relationship," includes "Research Domains and Language Program Direction" (Bill VanPatten); "Language Program Direction and the Modernist Agenda" (Celeste…

Developing a Graphical User Interface for the ALSS Crop Planning Tool

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Koehlert, Erik

1997-01-01

The goal of my project was to create a graphical user interface for a prototype crop scheduler. The crop scheduler was developed by Dr. Jorge Leon and Laura Whitaker for the ALSS (Advanced Life Support System) program. The addition of a system-independent graphical user interface to the crop planning tool will make the application more accessible to a wider range of users and enhance its value as an analysis, design, and planning tool. My presentation will demonstrate the form and functionality of this interface. This graphical user interface allows users to edit system parameters stored in the file system. Data on the interaction of the crew, crops, and waste processing system with the available system resources is organized and labeled. Program output, which is stored in the file system, is also presented to the user in performance-time plots and organized charts. The menu system is designed to guide the user through analysis and decision making tasks, providing some help if necessary. The Java programming language was used to develop this interface in hopes of providing portability and remote operation.

JaxoDraw: A graphical user interface for drawing Feynman diagrams

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Binosi, D.; Theußl, L.

2004-08-01

JaxoDraw is a Feynman graph plotting tool written in Java. It has a complete graphical user interface that allows all actions to be carried out via mouse click-and-drag operations in a WYSIWYG fashion. Graphs may be exported to postscript/EPS format and can be saved in XML files to be used for later sessions. One of JaxoDraw's main features is the possibility to create ? code that may be used to generate graphics output, thus combining the powers of ? with those of a modern day drawing program. With JaxoDraw it becomes possible to draw even complicated Feynman diagrams with just a few mouse clicks, without the knowledge of any programming language. Program summaryTitle of program: JaxoDraw Catalogue identifier: ADUA Program summary URL:http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/ADUA Program obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen's University of Belfast, N. Ireland Distribution format: tar gzip file Operating system: Any Java-enabled platform, tested on Linux, Windows ME, XP, Mac OS X Programming language used: Java License: GPL Nature of problem: Existing methods for drawing Feynman diagrams usually require some 'hard-coding' in one or the other programming or scripting language. It is not very convenient and often time consuming, to generate relatively simple diagrams. Method of solution: A program is provided that allows for the interactive drawing of Feynman diagrams with a graphical user interface. The program is easy to learn and use, produces high quality output in several formats and runs on any operating system where a Java Runtime Environment is available. Number of bytes in distributed program, including test data: 2 117 863 Number of lines in distributed program, including test data: 60 000 Restrictions: Certain operations (like internal latex compilation, Postscript preview) require the execution of external commands that might not work on untested operating systems. Typical running time: As an interactive program, the running time depends on the complexity of the diagram to be drawn.

RGG: A general GUI Framework for R scripts

PubMed Central

Visne, Ilhami; Dilaveroglu, Erkan; Vierlinger, Klemens; Lauss, Martin; Yildiz, Ahmet; Weinhaeusel, Andreas; Noehammer, Christa; Leisch, Friedrich; Kriegner, Albert

2009-01-01

Background R is the leading open source statistics software with a vast number of biostatistical and bioinformatical analysis packages. To exploit the advantages of R, extensive scripting/programming skills are required. Results We have developed a software tool called R GUI Generator (RGG) which enables the easy generation of Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) for the programming language R by adding a few Extensible Markup Language (XML) – tags. RGG consists of an XML-based GUI definition language and a Java-based GUI engine. GUIs are generated in runtime from defined GUI tags that are embedded into the R script. User-GUI input is returned to the R code and replaces the XML-tags. RGG files can be developed using any text editor. The current version of RGG is available as a stand-alone software (RGGRunner) and as a plug-in for JGR. Conclusion RGG is a general GUI framework for R that has the potential to introduce R statistics (R packages, built-in functions and scripts) to users with limited programming skills and helps to bridge the gap between R developers and GUI-dependent users. RGG aims to abstract the GUI development from individual GUI toolkits by using an XML-based GUI definition language. Thus RGG can be easily integrated in any software. The RGG project further includes the development of a web-based repository for RGG-GUIs. RGG is an open source project licensed under the Lesser General Public License (LGPL) and can be downloaded freely at PMID:19254356

Methodology, status, and plans for development and assessment of the RELAP5 code

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Johnson, G.W.; Riemke, R.A.

1997-07-01

RELAP/MOD3 is a computer code used for the simulation of transients and accidents in light-water nuclear power plants. The objective of the program to develop and maintain RELAP5 was and is to provide the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission with an independent tool for assessing reactor safety. This paper describes code requirements, models, solution scheme, language and structure, user interface validation, and documentation. The paper also describes the current and near term development program and provides an assessment of the code`s strengths and limitations.

Model-Driven Engineering of Machine Executable Code

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Eichberg, Michael; Monperrus, Martin; Kloppenburg, Sven; Mezini, Mira

Implementing static analyses of machine-level executable code is labor intensive and complex. We show how to leverage model-driven engineering to facilitate the design and implementation of programs doing static analyses. Further, we report on important lessons learned on the benefits and drawbacks while using the following technologies: using the Scala programming language as target of code generation, using XML-Schema to express a metamodel, and using XSLT to implement (a) transformations and (b) a lint like tool. Finally, we report on the use of Prolog for writing model transformations.

STICAP: A linear circuit analysis program with stiff systems capability. Volume 1: Theory manual. [network analysis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cooke, C. H.

1975-01-01

STICAP (Stiff Circuit Analysis Program) is a FORTRAN 4 computer program written for the CDC-6400-6600 computer series and SCOPE 3.0 operating system. It provides the circuit analyst a tool for automatically computing the transient responses and frequency responses of large linear time invariant networks, both stiff and nonstiff (algorithms and numerical integration techniques are described). The circuit description and user's program input language is engineer-oriented, making simple the task of using the program. Engineering theories underlying STICAP are examined. A user's manual is included which explains user interaction with the program and gives results of typical circuit design applications. Also, the program structure from a systems programmer's viewpoint is depicted and flow charts and other software documentation are given.

Scriptwriting as a Tool for Learning Stylistic Variation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saugera, Valerie

2011-01-01

A film script is a useful tool for allowing students to experiment with language variation. Scripts of love stories comprise a range of language contexts, each triggering a different style on a formal-neutral-informal linguistic continuum: (1) technical cinematographic language in camera directions; (2) narrative language in exposition of scenes,…

Facebook Groups as a Supporting Tool for Language Classrooms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ekoc, Arzu

2014-01-01

This paper attempts to present a review of Facebook group pages as an educational tool for language learning. One of the primary needs of foreign language learners is to gain the opportunity to use the target language outside the classroom practice. Social media communication provides occasions for learners to receive input and produce output…

Interpretive computer simulator for the NASA Standard Spacecraft Computer-2 (NSSC-2)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Smith, R. S.; Noland, M. S.

1979-01-01

An Interpretive Computer Simulator (ICS) for the NASA Standard Spacecraft Computer-II (NSSC-II) was developed as a code verification and testing tool for the Annular Suspension and Pointing System (ASPS) project. The simulator is written in the higher level language PASCAL and implented on the CDC CYBER series computer system. It is supported by a metal assembler, a linkage loader for the NSSC-II, and a utility library to meet the application requirements. The architectural design of the NSSC-II is that of an IBM System/360 (S/360) and supports all but four instructions of the S/360 standard instruction set. The structural design of the ICS is described with emphasis on the design differences between it and the NSSC-II hardware. The program flow is diagrammed, with the function of each procedure being defined; the instruction implementation is discussed in broad terms; and the instruction timings used in the ICS are listed. An example of the steps required to process an assembly level language program on the ICS is included. The example illustrates the control cards necessary to assemble, load, and execute assembly language code; the sample program to to be executed; the executable load module produced by the loader; and the resulting output produced by the ICS.

Computational modeling in cognitive science: a manifesto for change.

PubMed

Addyman, Caspar; French, Robert M

2012-07-01

Computational modeling has long been one of the traditional pillars of cognitive science. Unfortunately, the computer models of cognition being developed today have not kept up with the enormous changes that have taken place in computer technology and, especially, in human-computer interfaces.  For all intents and purposes, modeling is still done today as it was 25, or even 35, years ago. Everyone still programs in his or her own favorite programming language, source code is rarely made available, accessibility of models to non-programming researchers is essentially non-existent, and even for other modelers, the profusion of source code in a multitude of programming languages, written without programming guidelines, makes it almost impossible to access, check, explore, re-use, or continue to develop. It is high time to change this situation, especially since the tools are now readily available to do so. We propose that the modeling community adopt three simple guidelines that would ensure that computational models would be accessible to the broad range of researchers in cognitive science. We further emphasize the pivotal role that journal editors must play in making computational models accessible to readers of their journals. Copyright © 2012 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

A WebGL Tool for Visualizing the Topology of the Sun's Coronal Magnetic Field

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Duffy, A.; Cheung, C.; DeRosa, M. L.

2012-12-01

We present a web-based, topology-viewing tool that allows users to visualize the geometry and topology of the Sun's 3D coronal magnetic field in an interactive manner. The tool is implemented using, open-source, mature, modern web technologies including WebGL, jQuery, HTML 5, and CSS 3, which are compatible with nearly all modern web browsers. As opposed to the traditional method of visualization, which involves the downloading and setup of various software packages-proprietary and otherwise-the tool presents a clean interface that allows the user to easily load and manipulate the model, while also offering great power to choose which topological features are displayed. The tool accepts data encoded in the JSON open format that has libraries available for nearly every major programming language, making it simple to generate the data.

ART-Ada: An Ada-based expert system tool

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lee, S. Daniel; Allen, Bradley P.

1990-01-01

The Department of Defense mandate to standardize on Ada as the language for software systems development has resulted in an increased interest in making expert systems technology readily available in Ada environments. NASA's Space Station Freedom is an example of the large Ada software development projects that will require expert systems in the 1990's. Another large scale application that can benefit from Ada based expert system tool technology is the Pilot's Associate (PA) expert system project for military combat aircraft. The Automated Reasoning Tool-Ada (ART-Ada), an Ada expert system tool, is explained. ART-Ada allows applications of a C-based expert system tool called ART-IM to be deployed in various Ada environments. ART-Ada is being used to implement several prototype expert systems for NASA's Space Station Freedom program and the U.S. Air Force.

ART-Ada: An Ada-based expert system tool

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lee, S. Daniel; Allen, Bradley P.

1991-01-01

The Department of Defense mandate to standardize on Ada as the language for software systems development has resulted in increased interest in making expert systems technology readily available in Ada environments. NASA's Space Station Freedom is an example of the large Ada software development projects that will require expert systems in the 1990's. Another large scale application that can benefit from Ada based expert system tool technology is the Pilot's Associate (PA) expert system project for military combat aircraft. Automated Reasoning Tool (ART) Ada, an Ada Expert system tool is described. ART-Ada allow applications of a C-based expert system tool called ART-IM to be deployed in various Ada environments. ART-Ada is being used to implement several prototype expert systems for NASA's Space Station Freedom Program and the U.S. Air Force.

A survey of functional programming language principles

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Holloway, C. M.

1986-01-01

Research in the area of functional programming languages has intensified in the 8 years since John Backus' Turing Award Lecture on the topic was published. The purpose of this paper is to present a survey of the ideas of functional programming languages. The paper assumes the reader is comfortable with mathematics and has knowledge of the basic principles of traditional programming languages, but does not assume any prior knowledge of the ideas of functional languages. A simple functional language is defined and used to illustrate the basic ideas. Topics discussed include the reasons for developing functional languages, methods of expressing concurrency, the algebra of functional programming languages, program transformation techniques, and implementations of functional languages. Existing functional languages are also mentioned. The paper concludes with the author's opinions as to the future of functional languages. An annotated bibliography on the subject is also included.

Speech and Language Disorders in Kenyan Children: Adapting Tools For Regions With Few Assessment Resources

PubMed Central

Carter, Julie Anne; Murira, Grace; Gona, Joseph; Tumaini, Judy; Lees, Janet; Neville, Brian George; Newton, Charles Richard

2013-01-01

This study sought to adapt a battery of Western speech and language assessment tools to a rural Kenyan setting. The tool was developed for children whose first language was KiGiryama, a Bantu language. A total of 539 Kenyan children (males=271, females=268, ethnicity=100% Kigiryama. Data were collected from 303 children admitted to hospital with severe malaria and 206 age-matched children recruited from the village communities. The language assessments were based upon the Content, Form and Use (C/F/U) model. The assessment was based upon the adapted versions of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Test for the Reception of Grammar, Renfrew Action Picture Test, Pragmatics Profile of Everyday Communication Skills in Children, Test of Word Finding and language specific tests of lexical semantics, higher level language. Preliminary measures of construct validity suggested that the theoretical assumptions behind the construction of the assessments were appropriate and re-test and inter-rater reliability scores were acceptable. These findings illustrate the potential to adapt Western speech and language assessments in other languages and settings, particularly those in which there is a paucity of standardised tools. PMID:24294109

25 CFR 39.137 - May schools operate a language development program without a specific appropriation from Congress?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-04-01

... 25 Indians 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false May schools operate a language development program... Formula Language Development Programs § 39.137 May schools operate a language development program without a specific appropriation from Congress? Yes, a school may operate a language development program...

34 CFR 658.1 - What is the Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... Foreign Language Program? 658.1 Section 658.1 Education Regulations of the Offices of the Department of... STUDIES AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE PROGRAM General § 658.1 What is the Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program? The Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program is designed...

34 CFR 669.1 - What is the Language Resource Centers Program?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... 34 Education 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false What is the Language Resource Centers Program? 669.1... POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION LANGUAGE RESOURCE CENTERS PROGRAM General § 669.1 What is the Language Resource Centers Program? The Language Resource Centers Program makes awards, through grants or...

34 CFR 658.1 - What is the Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... Foreign Language Program? 658.1 Section 658.1 Education Regulations of the Offices of the Department of... STUDIES AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE PROGRAM General § 658.1 What is the Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program? The Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program is designed...

34 CFR 669.1 - What is the Language Resource Centers Program?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... 34 Education 3 2011-07-01 2011-07-01 false What is the Language Resource Centers Program? 669.1... POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION LANGUAGE RESOURCE CENTERS PROGRAM General § 669.1 What is the Language Resource Centers Program? The Language Resource Centers Program makes awards, through grants or...

A Hybrid Evaluation System Framework (Shell & Web) with Standardized Access to Climate Model Data and Verification Tools for a Clear Climate Science Infrastructure on Big Data High Performance Computers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kadow, C.; Illing, S.; Kunst, O.; Cubasch, U.

2014-12-01

The project 'Integrated Data and Evaluation System for Decadal Scale Prediction' (INTEGRATION) as part of the German decadal prediction project MiKlip develops a central evaluation system. The fully operational hybrid features a HPC shell access and an user friendly web-interface. It employs one common system with a variety of verification tools and validation data from different projects in- and outside of MiKlip. The evaluation system is located at the German Climate Computing Centre (DKRZ) and has direct access to the bulk of its ESGF node including millions of climate model data sets, e.g. from CMIP5 and CORDEX. The database is organized by the international CMOR standard using the meta information of the self-describing model, reanalysis and observational data sets. Apache Solr is used for indexing the different data projects into one common search environment. This implemented meta data system with its advanced but easy to handle search tool supports users, developers and their tools to retrieve the required information. A generic application programming interface (API) allows scientific developers to connect their analysis tools with the evaluation system independently of the programming language used. Users of the evaluation techniques benefit from the common interface of the evaluation system without any need to understand the different scripting languages. Facilitating the provision and usage of tools and climate data increases automatically the number of scientists working with the data sets and identify discrepancies. Additionally, the history and configuration sub-system stores every analysis performed with the evaluation system in a MySQL database. Configurations and results of the tools can be shared among scientists via shell or web-system. Therefore, plugged-in tools gain automatically from transparency and reproducibility. Furthermore, when configurations match while starting a evaluation tool, the system suggests to use results already produced by other users-saving CPU time, I/O and disk space. This study presents the different techniques and advantages of such a hybrid evaluation system making use of a Big Data HPC in climate science. website: www-miklip.dkrz.de visitor-login: guest password: miklip

A Hybrid Evaluation System Framework (Shell & Web) with Standardized Access to Climate Model Data and Verification Tools for a Clear Climate Science Infrastructure on Big Data High Performance Computers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kadow, Christopher; Illing, Sebastian; Kunst, Oliver; Ulbrich, Uwe; Cubasch, Ulrich

2015-04-01

The project 'Integrated Data and Evaluation System for Decadal Scale Prediction' (INTEGRATION) as part of the German decadal prediction project MiKlip develops a central evaluation system. The fully operational hybrid features a HPC shell access and an user friendly web-interface. It employs one common system with a variety of verification tools and validation data from different projects in- and outside of MiKlip. The evaluation system is located at the German Climate Computing Centre (DKRZ) and has direct access to the bulk of its ESGF node including millions of climate model data sets, e.g. from CMIP5 and CORDEX. The database is organized by the international CMOR standard using the meta information of the self-describing model, reanalysis and observational data sets. Apache Solr is used for indexing the different data projects into one common search environment. This implemented meta data system with its advanced but easy to handle search tool supports users, developers and their tools to retrieve the required information. A generic application programming interface (API) allows scientific developers to connect their analysis tools with the evaluation system independently of the programming language used. Users of the evaluation techniques benefit from the common interface of the evaluation system without any need to understand the different scripting languages. Facilitating the provision and usage of tools and climate data increases automatically the number of scientists working with the data sets and identify discrepancies. Additionally, the history and configuration sub-system stores every analysis performed with the evaluation system in a MySQL database. Configurations and results of the tools can be shared among scientists via shell or web-system. Therefore, plugged-in tools gain automatically from transparency and reproducibility. Furthermore, when configurations match while starting a evaluation tool, the system suggests to use results already produced by other users-saving CPU time, I/O and disk space. This study presents the different techniques and advantages of such a hybrid evaluation system making use of a Big Data HPC in climate science. website: www-miklip.dkrz.de visitor-login: click on "Guest"

Advancing Research in Second Language Writing through Computational Tools and Machine Learning Techniques: A Research Agenda

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crossley, Scott A.

2013-01-01

This paper provides an agenda for replication studies focusing on second language (L2) writing and the use of natural language processing (NLP) tools and machine learning algorithms. Specifically, it introduces a range of the available NLP tools and machine learning algorithms and demonstrates how these could be used to replicate seminal studies…

Laboratory for Computer Science Progress Report 19, 1 July 1981-30 June 1982.

DTIC Science & Technology

1984-05-01

Multiprocessor Architectures 202 4. TRIX Operating System 209 5. VLSI Tools 212 ’SYSTEMATIC PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT, 221 1. Introduction 222 2. Specification...exploring distributed operating systems and the architecture of single-user powerful computers that are interconnected by communication networks. The...to now. In particular, we expect to experiment with languages, operating systems , and applications that establish the feasibility of distributed

Explicit Substitutions and All That

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ayala-Rincon, Mauricio; Munoz, Cesar

2000-01-01

Explicit substitution calculi are extensions of the lambda-calculus where the substitution mechanism is internalized into the theory. This feature makes them suitable for implementation and theoretical study of logic-based tools such as strongly typed programming languages and proof assistant systems. In this paper we explore new developments on two of the most successful styles of explicit substitution calculi: the lambda sigma- and lambda S(e)-calculi.

Apiculture de Petite Eschelle (Small Scale Beekeeping). Appropriate Technologies for Development. Peace Corps Information Collection & Exchange Manual Series No. M-26.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gentry, Curtis

This French-language manual is designed to assist Peace Corps volunteers in French-speaking countries in the implementation of small-scale beekeeping programs as a tool for development. Addressed in the individual chapters are bees and humans; project planning; the types and habits of bees; the essence of beekeeping; bee space and beehives;…

Explicit Substitutions and All That

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ayala-Rincon, Mauricio; Munoz, Cesar; Busnell, Dennis M. (Technical Monitor)

2000-01-01

Explicit substitution calculi are extensions of the Lambda-calculus where the substitution mechanism is internalized into the theory. This feature makes them suitable for implementation and theoretical study of logic-based tools such as strongly typed programming languages and proof assistant systems. In this paper we explore new developments on two of the most successful styles of explicit substitution calculi: the lambda(sigma)- and lambda(s(e))-calculi.

SLA Developmental Stages and Teachers' Assessment of Written French: Exploring Direkt Profil as a Diagnostic Assessment Tool

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Granfeldt, Jonas; Ågren, Malin

2014-01-01

One core area of research in Second Language Acquisition is the identification and definition of developmental stages in different L2s. For L2 French, Bartning and Schlyter (2004) presented a model of six morphosyntactic stages of development in the shape of grammatical profiles. The model formed the basis for the computer program Direkt Profil…

GRAFLAB 2.3 for UNIX - A MATLAB database, plotting, and analysis tool: User`s guide

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Dunn, W.N.

1998-03-01

This report is a user`s manual for GRAFLAB, which is a new database, analysis, and plotting package that has been written entirely in the MATLAB programming language. GRAFLAB is currently used for data reduction, analysis, and archival. GRAFLAB was written to replace GRAFAID, which is a FORTRAN database, analysis, and plotting package that runs on VAX/VMS.

Combining the Old and the New: Designing a Curriculum Based on the Taba Model and the Global Scale of English

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aydin, Belgin; Unver, Meral Melek; Alan, Bülent; Saglam, Sercan

2017-01-01

This paper explains the process of designing a curriculum based on the Taba Model and the Global Scale of English (GSE) in an intensive language education program. The Taba Model emphasizing the involvement of the teachers and the learners in the curriculum development process was combined with the GSE, a psychometric tool measuring language…

Graphical Displays Assist In Analysis Of Failures

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pack, Ginger; Wadsworth, David; Razavipour, Reza

1995-01-01

Failure Environment Analysis Tool (FEAT) computer program enables people to see and better understand effects of failures in system. Uses digraph models to determine what will happen to system if set of failure events occurs and to identify possible causes of selected set of failures. Digraphs or engineering schematics used. Also used in operations to help identify causes of failures after they occur. Written in C language.

ADASS Web Database XML Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barg, M. I.; Stobie, E. B.; Ferro, A. J.; O'Neil, E. J.

In the spring of 2000, at the request of the ADASS Program Organizing Committee (POC), we began organizing information from previous ADASS conferences in an effort to create a centralized database. The beginnings of this database originated from data (invited speakers, participants, papers, etc.) extracted from HyperText Markup Language (HTML) documents from past ADASS host sites. Unfortunately, not all HTML documents are well formed and parsing them proved to be an iterative process. It was evident at the beginning that if these Web documents were organized in a standardized way, such as XML (Extensible Markup Language), the processing of this information across the Web could be automated, more efficient, and less error prone. This paper will briefly review the many programming tools available for processing XML, including Java, Perl and Python, and will explore the mapping of relational data from our MySQL database to XML.

A programmable computational image sensor for high-speed vision

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, Jie; Shi, Cong; Long, Xitian; Wu, Nanjian

2013-08-01

In this paper we present a programmable computational image sensor for high-speed vision. This computational image sensor contains four main blocks: an image pixel array, a massively parallel processing element (PE) array, a row processor (RP) array and a RISC core. The pixel-parallel PE is responsible for transferring, storing and processing image raw data in a SIMD fashion with its own programming language. The RPs are one dimensional array of simplified RISC cores, it can carry out complex arithmetic and logic operations. The PE array and RP array can finish great amount of computation with few instruction cycles and therefore satisfy the low- and middle-level high-speed image processing requirement. The RISC core controls the whole system operation and finishes some high-level image processing algorithms. We utilize a simplified AHB bus as the system bus to connect our major components. Programming language and corresponding tool chain for this computational image sensor are also developed.

Wet Lab Accelerator: A Web-Based Application Democratizing Laboratory Automation for Synthetic Biology.

PubMed

Bates, Maxwell; Berliner, Aaron J; Lachoff, Joe; Jaschke, Paul R; Groban, Eli S

2017-01-20

Wet Lab Accelerator (WLA) is a cloud-based tool that allows a scientist to conduct biology via robotic control without the need for any programming knowledge. A drag and drop interface provides a convenient and user-friendly method of generating biological protocols. Graphically developed protocols are turned into programmatic instruction lists required to conduct experiments at the cloud laboratory Transcriptic. Prior to the development of WLA, biologists were required to write in a programming language called "Autoprotocol" in order to work with Transcriptic. WLA relies on a new abstraction layer we call "Omniprotocol" to convert the graphical experimental description into lower level Autoprotocol language, which then directs robots at Transcriptic. While WLA has only been tested at Transcriptic, the conversion of graphically laid out experimental steps into Autoprotocol is generic, allowing extension of WLA into other cloud laboratories in the future. WLA hopes to democratize biology by bringing automation to general biologists.

Utilizing Linked Open Data Sources for Automatic Generation of Semantic Metadata

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nummiaho, Antti; Vainikainen, Sari; Melin, Magnus

In this paper we present an application that can be used to automatically generate semantic metadata for tags given as simple keywords. The application that we have implemented in Java programming language creates the semantic metadata by linking the tags to concepts in different semantic knowledge bases (CrunchBase, DBpedia, Freebase, KOKO, Opencyc, Umbel and/or WordNet). The steps that our application takes in doing so include detecting possible languages, finding spelling suggestions and finding meanings from amongst the proper nouns and common nouns separately. Currently, our application supports English, Finnish and Swedish words, but other languages could be included easily if the required lexical tools (spellcheckers, etc.) are available. The created semantic metadata can be of great use in, e.g., finding and combining similar contents, creating recommendations and targeting advertisements.

Automated Reporting of DXA Studies Using a Custom-Built Computer Program.

PubMed

England, Joseph R; Colletti, Patrick M

2018-06-01

Dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans are a critical population health tool and relatively simple to interpret but can be time consuming to report, often requiring manual transfer of bone mineral density and associated statistics into commercially available dictation systems. We describe here a custom-built computer program for automated reporting of DXA scans using Pydicom, an open-source package built in the Python computer language, and regular expressions to mine DICOM tags for patient information and bone mineral density statistics. This program, easy to emulate by any novice computer programmer, has doubled our efficiency at reporting DXA scans and has eliminated dictation errors.

Logic programming and metadata specifications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lopez, Antonio M., Jr.; Saacks, Marguerite E.

1992-01-01

Artificial intelligence (AI) ideas and techniques are critical to the development of intelligent information systems that will be used to collect, manipulate, and retrieve the vast amounts of space data produced by 'Missions to Planet Earth.' Natural language processing, inference, and expert systems are at the core of this space application of AI. This paper presents logic programming as an AI tool that can support inference (the ability to draw conclusions from a set of complicated and interrelated facts). It reports on the use of logic programming in the study of metadata specifications for a small problem domain of airborne sensors, and the dataset characteristics and pointers that are needed for data access.

Software Model Checking Without Source Code

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Chaki, Sagar; Ivers, James

2009-01-01

We present a framework, called AIR, for verifying safety properties of assembly language programs via software model checking. AIR extends the applicability of predicate abstraction and counterexample guided abstraction refinement to the automated verification of low-level software. By working at the assembly level, AIR allows verification of programs for which source code is unavailable-such as legacy and COTS software-and programs that use features-such as pointers, structures, and object-orientation-that are problematic for source-level software verification tools. In addition, AIR makes no assumptions about the underlying compiler technology. We have implemented a prototype of AIR and present encouraging results on several non-trivial examples.

An Embedded Rule-Based Diagnostic Expert System in Ada

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jones, Robert E.; Liberman, Eugene M.

1992-01-01

Ada is becoming an increasingly popular programming language for large Government-funded software projects. Ada with it portability, transportability, and maintainability lends itself well to today's complex programming environment. In addition, expert systems have also assumed a growing role in providing human-like reasoning capability expertise for computer systems. The integration is discussed of expert system technology with Ada programming language, especially a rule-based expert system using an ART-Ada (Automated Reasoning Tool for Ada) system shell. NASA Lewis was chosen as a beta test site for ART-Ada. The test was conducted by implementing the existing Autonomous Power EXpert System (APEX), a Lisp-based power expert system, in ART-Ada. Three components, the rule-based expert systems, a graphics user interface, and communications software make up SMART-Ada (Systems fault Management with ART-Ada). The rules were written in the ART-Ada development environment and converted to Ada source code. The graphics interface was developed with the Transportable Application Environment (TAE) Plus, which generates Ada source code to control graphics images. SMART-Ada communicates with a remote host to obtain either simulated or real data. The Ada source code generated with ART-Ada, TAE Plus, and communications code was incorporated into an Ada expert system that reads the data from a power distribution test bed, applies the rule to determine a fault, if one exists, and graphically displays it on the screen. The main objective, to conduct a beta test on the ART-Ada rule-based expert system shell, was achieved. The system is operational. New Ada tools will assist in future successful projects. ART-Ada is one such tool and is a viable alternative to the straight Ada code when an application requires a rule-based or knowledge-based approach.

A Quasi-Universal Nonword Repetition Task as a Diagnostic Tool for Bilingual Children Learning Dutch as a Second Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boerma, Tessel; Chiat, Shula; Leseman, Paul; Timmermeister, Mona; Wijnen, Frank; Blom, Elma

2015-01-01

Purpose: This study evaluated a newly developed quasi-universal nonword repetition task (Q-U NWRT) as a diagnostic tool for bilingual children with language impairment (LI) who have Dutch as a 2nd language. The Q-U NWRT was designed to be minimally influenced by knowledge of 1 specific language in contrast to a language-specific NWRT with which it…

MIST: An Open Source Environmental Modelling Programming Language Incorporating Easy to Use Data Parallelism.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bellerby, Tim

2014-05-01

Model Integration System (MIST) is open-source environmental modelling programming language that directly incorporates data parallelism. The language is designed to enable straightforward programming structures, such as nested loops and conditional statements to be directly translated into sequences of whole-array (or more generally whole data-structure) operations. MIST thus enables the programmer to use well-understood constructs, directly relating to the mathematical structure of the model, without having to explicitly vectorize code or worry about details of parallelization. A range of common modelling operations are supported by dedicated language structures operating on cell neighbourhoods rather than individual cells (e.g.: the 3x3 local neighbourhood needed to implement an averaging image filter can be simply accessed from within a simple loop traversing all image pixels). This facility hides details of inter-process communication behind more mathematically relevant descriptions of model dynamics. The MIST automatic vectorization/parallelization process serves both to distribute work among available nodes and separately to control storage requirements for intermediate expressions - enabling operations on very large domains for which memory availability may be an issue. MIST is designed to facilitate efficient interpreter based implementations. A prototype open source interpreter is available, coded in standard FORTRAN 95, with tools to rapidly integrate existing FORTRAN 77 or 95 code libraries. The language is formally specified and thus not limited to FORTRAN implementation or to an interpreter-based approach. A MIST to FORTRAN compiler is under development and volunteers are sought to create an ANSI-C implementation. Parallel processing is currently implemented using OpenMP. However, parallelization code is fully modularised and could be replaced with implementations using other libraries. GPU implementation is potentially possible.

Rubus: A compiler for seamless and extensible parallelism.

PubMed

Adnan, Muhammad; Aslam, Faisal; Nawaz, Zubair; Sarwar, Syed Mansoor

2017-01-01

Nowadays, a typical processor may have multiple processing cores on a single chip. Furthermore, a special purpose processing unit called Graphic Processing Unit (GPU), originally designed for 2D/3D games, is now available for general purpose use in computers and mobile devices. However, the traditional programming languages which were designed to work with machines having single core CPUs, cannot utilize the parallelism available on multi-core processors efficiently. Therefore, to exploit the extraordinary processing power of multi-core processors, researchers are working on new tools and techniques to facilitate parallel programming. To this end, languages like CUDA and OpenCL have been introduced, which can be used to write code with parallelism. The main shortcoming of these languages is that programmer needs to specify all the complex details manually in order to parallelize the code across multiple cores. Therefore, the code written in these languages is difficult to understand, debug and maintain. Furthermore, to parallelize legacy code can require rewriting a significant portion of code in CUDA or OpenCL, which can consume significant time and resources. Thus, the amount of parallelism achieved is proportional to the skills of the programmer and the time spent in code optimizations. This paper proposes a new open source compiler, Rubus, to achieve seamless parallelism. The Rubus compiler relieves the programmer from manually specifying the low-level details. It analyses and transforms a sequential program into a parallel program automatically, without any user intervention. This achieves massive speedup and better utilization of the underlying hardware without a programmer's expertise in parallel programming. For five different benchmarks, on average a speedup of 34.54 times has been achieved by Rubus as compared to Java on a basic GPU having only 96 cores. Whereas, for a matrix multiplication benchmark the average execution speedup of 84 times has been achieved by Rubus on the same GPU. Moreover, Rubus achieves this performance without drastically increasing the memory footprint of a program.

Rubus: A compiler for seamless and extensible parallelism

PubMed Central

Adnan, Muhammad; Aslam, Faisal; Sarwar, Syed Mansoor

2017-01-01

Nowadays, a typical processor may have multiple processing cores on a single chip. Furthermore, a special purpose processing unit called Graphic Processing Unit (GPU), originally designed for 2D/3D games, is now available for general purpose use in computers and mobile devices. However, the traditional programming languages which were designed to work with machines having single core CPUs, cannot utilize the parallelism available on multi-core processors efficiently. Therefore, to exploit the extraordinary processing power of multi-core processors, researchers are working on new tools and techniques to facilitate parallel programming. To this end, languages like CUDA and OpenCL have been introduced, which can be used to write code with parallelism. The main shortcoming of these languages is that programmer needs to specify all the complex details manually in order to parallelize the code across multiple cores. Therefore, the code written in these languages is difficult to understand, debug and maintain. Furthermore, to parallelize legacy code can require rewriting a significant portion of code in CUDA or OpenCL, which can consume significant time and resources. Thus, the amount of parallelism achieved is proportional to the skills of the programmer and the time spent in code optimizations. This paper proposes a new open source compiler, Rubus, to achieve seamless parallelism. The Rubus compiler relieves the programmer from manually specifying the low-level details. It analyses and transforms a sequential program into a parallel program automatically, without any user intervention. This achieves massive speedup and better utilization of the underlying hardware without a programmer’s expertise in parallel programming. For five different benchmarks, on average a speedup of 34.54 times has been achieved by Rubus as compared to Java on a basic GPU having only 96 cores. Whereas, for a matrix multiplication benchmark the average execution speedup of 84 times has been achieved by Rubus on the same GPU. Moreover, Rubus achieves this performance without drastically increasing the memory footprint of a program. PMID:29211758

Comprehension of Spacecraft Telemetry Using Hierarchical Specifications of Behavior

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Havelund, Klaus; Joshi, Rajeev

2014-01-01

A key challenge in operating remote spacecraft is that ground operators must rely on the limited visibility available through spacecraft telemetry in order to assess spacecraft health and operational status. We describe a tool for processing spacecraft telemetry that allows ground operators to impose structure on received telemetry in order to achieve a better comprehension of system state. A key element of our approach is the design of a domain-specific language that allows operators to express models of expected system behavior using partial specifications. The language allows behavior specifications with data fields, similar to other recent runtime verification systems. What is notable about our approach is the ability to develop hierarchical specifications of behavior. The language is implemented as an internal DSL in the Scala programming language that synthesizes rules from patterns of specification behavior. The rules are automatically applied to received telemetry and the inferred behaviors are available to ground operators using a visualization interface that makes it easier to understand and track spacecraft state. We describe initial results from applying our tool to telemetry received from the Curiosity rover currently roving the surface of Mars, where the visualizations are being used to trend subsystem behaviors, in order to identify potential problems before they happen. However, the technology is completely general and can be applied to any system that generates telemetry such as event logs.

Developing Formal Correctness Properties from Natural Language Requirements

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nikora, Allen P.

2006-01-01

This viewgraph presentation reviews the rationale of the program to transform natural language specifications into formal notation.Specifically, automate generation of Linear Temporal Logic (LTL)correctness properties from natural language temporal specifications. There are several reasons for this approach (1) Model-based techniques becoming more widely accepted, (2) Analytical verification techniques (e.g., model checking, theorem proving) significantly more effective at detecting types of specification design errors (e.g., race conditions, deadlock) than manual inspection, (3) Many requirements still written in natural language, which results in a high learning curve for specification languages, associated tools and increased schedule and budget pressure on projects reduce training opportunities for engineers, and (4) Formulation of correctness properties for system models can be a difficult problem. This has relevance to NASA in that it would simplify development of formal correctness properties, lead to more widespread use of model-based specification, design techniques, assist in earlier identification of defects and reduce residual defect content for space mission software systems. The presentation also discusses: potential applications, accomplishments and/or technological transfer potential and the next steps.

TU-C-17A-03: An Integrated Contour Evaluation Software Tool Using Supervised Pattern Recognition for Radiotherapy

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Chen, H; Tan, J; Kavanaugh, J

Purpose: Radiotherapy (RT) contours delineated either manually or semiautomatically require verification before clinical usage. Manual evaluation is very time consuming. A new integrated software tool using supervised pattern contour recognition was thus developed to facilitate this process. Methods: The contouring tool was developed using an object-oriented programming language C# and application programming interfaces, e.g. visualization toolkit (VTK). The C# language served as the tool design basis. The Accord.Net scientific computing libraries were utilized for the required statistical data processing and pattern recognition, while the VTK was used to build and render 3-D mesh models from critical RT structures in real-timemore » and 360° visualization. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used for system self-updating geometry variations of normal structures based on physician-approved RT contours as a training dataset. The inhouse design of supervised PCA-based contour recognition method was used for automatically evaluating contour normality/abnormality. The function for reporting the contour evaluation results was implemented by using C# and Windows Form Designer. Results: The software input was RT simulation images and RT structures from commercial clinical treatment planning systems. Several abilities were demonstrated: automatic assessment of RT contours, file loading/saving of various modality medical images and RT contours, and generation/visualization of 3-D images and anatomical models. Moreover, it supported the 360° rendering of the RT structures in a multi-slice view, which allows physicians to visually check and edit abnormally contoured structures. Conclusion: This new software integrates the supervised learning framework with image processing and graphical visualization modules for RT contour verification. This tool has great potential for facilitating treatment planning with the assistance of an automatic contour evaluation module in avoiding unnecessary manual verification for physicians/dosimetrists. In addition, its nature as a compact and stand-alone tool allows for future extensibility to include additional functions for physicians’ clinical needs.« less

Flight program language requirements. Volume 2: Requirements and evaluations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1972-01-01

The efforts and results are summarized for a study to establish requirements for a flight programming language for future onboard computer applications. Several different languages were available as potential candidates for future NASA flight programming efforts. The study centered around an evaluation of the four most pertinent existing aerospace languages. Evaluation criteria were established, and selected kernels from the current Saturn 5 and Skylab flight programs were used as benchmark problems for sample coding. An independent review of the language specifications incorporated anticipated future programming requirements into the evaluation. A set of detailed language requirements was synthesized from these activities. The details of program language requirements and of the language evaluations are described.

Model Checking Abstract PLEXIL Programs with SMART

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Siminiceanu, Radu I.

2007-01-01

We describe a method to automatically generate discrete-state models of abstract Plan Execution Interchange Language (PLEXIL) programs that can be analyzed using model checking tools. Starting from a high-level description of a PLEXIL program or a family of programs with common characteristics, the generator lays the framework that models the principles of program execution. The concrete parts of the program are not automatically generated, but require the modeler to introduce them by hand. As a case study, we generate models to verify properties of the PLEXIL macro constructs that are introduced as shorthand notation. After an exhaustive analysis, we conclude that the macro definitions obey the intended semantics and behave as expected, but contingently on a few specific requirements on the timing semantics of micro-steps in the concrete executive implementation.

Avoiding the Target Language with the Help of Google: Managing Language Choices in Gathering Information for EFL Project Work

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Musk, Nigel

2014-01-01

The integration of translation tools into the Google search engine has led to a huge increase in the visibility and accessibility of such tools, with potentially far-reaching implications for the English language classroom. Although these translation tools are the focus of this study, using them is in fact only one way in which English language…

An Investigation of Language Teachers' Explorations of the Use of Corpus Tools in the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) Class

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bunting, John David

2013-01-01

Despite claims that the use of corpus tools can have a major impact in language classrooms (e.g., Conrad, 2000, 2004; Davies, 2004; O'Keefe, McCarthy, & Carter, 2007; Sinclair, 2004b; Tsui, 2004), many language teachers express apparent apathy or even resistance towards adding corpus tools to their repertoire (Cortes, 2013b). This study…

The PAWS and STEM reliability analysis programs

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Butler, Ricky W.; Stevenson, Philip H.

1988-01-01

The PAWS and STEM programs are new design/validation tools. These programs provide a flexible, user-friendly, language-based interface for the input of Markov models describing the behavior of fault-tolerant computer systems. These programs produce exact solutions of the probability of system failure and provide a conservative estimate of the number of significant digits in the solution. PAWS uses a Pade approximation as a solution technique; STEM uses a Taylor series as a solution technique. Both programs have the capability to solve numerically stiff models. PAWS and STEM possess complementary properties with regard to their input space; and, an additional strength of these programs is that they accept input compatible with the SURE program. If used in conjunction with SURE, PAWS and STEM provide a powerful suite of programs to analyze the reliability of fault-tolerant computer systems.

Speech and language interventions for infants aged 0 to 2 years at high risk for cerebral palsy: a systematic review

PubMed Central

Chorna, Olena; Hamm, Ellyn; Cummings, Caitlin; Fetters, Ashley; Maitre, Nathalie L

2017-01-01

Aim We evaluated the level of evidence of speech, language, and communication interventions for infants at high-risk for, or with a diagnosis of, cerebral palsy (CP) from 0 to 2 years old. Method We performed a systematic review of relevant terms. Articles were evaluated based on the level of methodological quality and evidence according to A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR) and Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) guidelines. Results The search terms provided 17 publications consisting of speech or language interventions. There were no interventions in the high level of evidence category. The overall level of evidence was very low. Promising interventions included Responsivity and Prelinguistic Milieu Teaching and other parent–infant transaction frameworks. Interpretation There are few evidence-based interventions addressing speech, language, and communication needs of infants and toddlers at high risk for CP, and none for infants diagnosed with CP. Recommendation guidelines include parent–infant transaction programs. PMID:27897320

Software and languages for microprocessors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Williams, David O.

1986-08-01

This paper forms the basis for lectures given at the 6th Summer School on Computing Techniques in Physics, organised by the Computational Physics group of the European Physics Society, and held at the Hotel Ski, Nové Město na Moravě, Czechoslovakia, on 17-26 September 1985. Various types of microprocessor applications are discussed and the main emphasis of the paper is devoted to 'embedded' systems, where the software development is not carried out on the target microprocessor. Some information is provided on the general characteristics of microprocessor hardware. Various types of microprocessor operating system are compared and contrasted. The selection of appropriate languages and software environments for use with microprocessors is discussed. Mechanisms for interworking between different languages, including reasonable error handling, are treated. The CERN developed cross-software suite for the Motorola 68000 family is described. Some remarks are made concerning program tools applicable to microprocessors. PILS, a Portable Interactive Language System, which can be interpreted or compiled for a range of microprocessors, is described in some detail, and the implementation techniques are discussed.

FPT- FORTRAN PROGRAMMING TOOLS FOR THE DEC VAX

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ragosta, A. E.

1994-01-01

The FORTRAN Programming Tools (FPT) are a series of tools used to support the development and maintenance of FORTRAN 77 source codes. Included are a debugging aid, a CPU time monitoring program, source code maintenance aids, print utilities, and a library of useful, well-documented programs. These tools assist in reducing development time and encouraging high quality programming. Although intended primarily for FORTRAN programmers, some of the tools can be used on data files and other programming languages. BUGOUT is a series of FPT programs that have proven very useful in debugging a particular kind of error and in optimizing CPU-intensive codes. The particular type of error is the illegal addressing of data or code as a result of subtle FORTRAN errors that are not caught by the compiler or at run time. A TRACE option also allows the programmer to verify the execution path of a program. The TIME option assists the programmer in identifying the CPU-intensive routines in a program to aid in optimization studies. Program coding, maintenance, and print aids available in FPT include: routines for building standard format subprogram stubs; cleaning up common blocks and NAMELISTs; removing all characters after column 72; displaying two files side by side on a VT-100 terminal; creating a neat listing of a FORTRAN source code including a Table of Contents, an Index, and Page Headings; converting files between VMS internal format and standard carriage control format; changing text strings in a file without using EDT; and replacing tab characters with spaces. The library of useful, documented programs includes the following: time and date routines; a string categorization routine; routines for converting between decimal, hex, and octal; routines to delay process execution for a specified time; a Gaussian elimination routine for solving a set of simultaneous linear equations; a curve fitting routine for least squares fit to polynomial, exponential, and sinusoidal forms (with a screen-oriented editor); a cubic spline fit routine; a screen-oriented array editor; routines to support parsing; and various terminal support routines. These FORTRAN programming tools are written in FORTRAN 77 and ASSEMBLER for interactive and batch execution. FPT is intended for implementation on DEC VAX series computers operating under VMS. This collection of tools was developed in 1985.

Teaching a Foreign Language to Deaf People via Vodcasting & Web 2.0 Tools

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Drigas, Athanasios; Vrettaros, John; Tagoulis, Alexandors; Kouremenos, Dimitris

This paper presents the design and development of an e-learning course in teaching deaf people in a foreign language, whose first language is the sign language. The course is based in e-material, vodcasting and web 2.0 tools such as social networking and blog The course has been designed especially for deaf people and it is exploring the possibilities that e-learning material vodcasting and web 2.0 tools can offer to enhance the learning process and achieve more effective learning results.

GPAW - massively parallel electronic structure calculations with Python-based software.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Enkovaara, J.; Romero, N.; Shende, S.

2011-01-01

Electronic structure calculations are a widely used tool in materials science and large consumer of supercomputing resources. Traditionally, the software packages for these kind of simulations have been implemented in compiled languages, where Fortran in its different versions has been the most popular choice. While dynamic, interpreted languages, such as Python, can increase the effciency of programmer, they cannot compete directly with the raw performance of compiled languages. However, by using an interpreted language together with a compiled language, it is possible to have most of the productivity enhancing features together with a good numerical performance. We have used thismore » approach in implementing an electronic structure simulation software GPAW using the combination of Python and C programming languages. While the chosen approach works well in standard workstations and Unix environments, massively parallel supercomputing systems can present some challenges in porting, debugging and profiling the software. In this paper we describe some details of the implementation and discuss the advantages and challenges of the combined Python/C approach. We show that despite the challenges it is possible to obtain good numerical performance and good parallel scalability with Python based software.« less

EpHLA: an innovative and user-friendly software automating the HLAMatchmaker algorithm for antibody analysis.

PubMed

Sousa, Luiz Cláudio Demes da Mata; Filho, Herton Luiz Alves Sales; Von Glehn, Cristina de Queiroz Carrascosa; da Silva, Adalberto Socorro; Neto, Pedro de Alcântara dos Santos; de Castro, José Adail Fonseca; do Monte, Semíramis Jamil Hadad

2011-12-01

The global challenge for solid organ transplantation programs is to distribute organs to the highly sensitized recipients. The purpose of this work is to describe and test the functionality of the EpHLA software, a program that automates the analysis of acceptable and unacceptable HLA epitopes on the basis of the HLAMatchmaker algorithm. HLAMatchmaker considers small configurations of polymorphic residues referred to as eplets as essential components of HLA-epitopes. Currently, the analyses require the creation of temporary files and the manual cut and paste of laboratory tests results between electronic spreadsheets, which is time-consuming and prone to administrative errors. The EpHLA software was developed in Object Pascal programming language and uses the HLAMatchmaker algorithm to generate histocompatibility reports. The automated generation of reports requires the integration of files containing the results of laboratory tests (HLA typing, anti-HLA antibody signature) and public data banks (NMDP, IMGT). The integration and the access to this data were accomplished by means of the framework called eDAFramework. The eDAFramework was developed in Object Pascal and PHP and it provides data access functionalities for software developed in these languages. The tool functionality was successfully tested in comparison to actual, manually derived reports of patients from a renal transplantation program with related donors. We successfully developed software, which enables the automated definition of the epitope specificities of HLA antibodies. This new tool will benefit the management of recipient/donor pairs selection for highly sensitized patients. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

From action to language: comparative perspectives on primate tool use, gesture and the evolution of human language

PubMed Central

Steele, James; Ferrari, Pier Francesco; Fogassi, Leonardo

2012-01-01

The papers in this Special Issue examine tool use and manual gestures in primates as a window on the evolution of the human capacity for language. Neurophysiological research has supported the hypothesis of a close association between some aspects of human action organization and of language representation, in both phonology and semantics. Tool use provides an excellent experimental context to investigate analogies between action organization and linguistic syntax. Contributors report and contextualize experimental evidence from monkeys, great apes, humans and fossil hominins, and consider the nature and the extent of overlaps between the neural representations of tool use, manual gestures and linguistic processes. PMID:22106422

A French-speaking speech-language pathology program in West Africa: transfer of training between Minority and Majority World countries.

PubMed

Topouzkhanian, Sylvia; Mijiyawa, Moustafa

2013-02-01

In West Africa, as in Majority World countries, people with a communication disability are generally cut-off from the normal development process. A long-term involvement of two partners (Orthophonistes du Monde and Handicap International) allowed the implementation in 2003 of the first speech-language pathology qualifying course in West Africa, within the Ecole Nationale des Auxiliaires Medicaux (ENAM, National School for Medical Auxiliaries) in Lome, Togo. It is a 3-year basic training (after the baccalaureate) in the only academic training centre for medical assistants in Togo. This department has a regional purpose and aims at training French-speaking African students. French speech-language pathology lecturers had to adapt their courses to the local realities they discovered in Togo. It was important to introduce and develop knowledge and skills in the students' system of reference. African speech-language pathologists have to face many challenges: creating an African speech and language therapy, introducing language disorders and their possible cure by means other than traditional therapies, and adapting all the evaluation tests and tools for speech-language pathology to each country, each culture, and each language. Creating an African speech-language pathology profession (according to its own standards) with a real influence in West Africa opens great opportunities for schooling and social and occupational integration of people with communication disabilities.

Speaking Spontaneously in the Modern Foreign Languages Classroom: Tools for Supporting Successful Target Language Conversation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Christie, Colin

2016-01-01

This article reports on the findings of a study into the conditions which promote spontaneous learner talk in the target language in the modern foreign languages (MFL) classroom. A qualitative case study approach was adopted. French lessons, with school students aged 11-16 years old, were observed and analysed with the aim of identifying tools and…

Communicating with the World: Connecting the Language Classroom to a Global Audience Using Web 2.0 Tools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

de Ramirez, Lori Langer

2013-01-01

Webtools provide language students a uniquely authentic audience with which to share their creativity and growing proficiency in the target language. Students tend to write/speak more--and better--when using these tools in the language classroom. Webtools form an enjoyable and pedagogically sound way of getting students to create and have fun with…

Quels outils pour l'analyse linguistique ou les prealables d'un enseignement de la grammaire? (What Tools for Linguistic Analysis or Preliminaries for Grammar Instruction?)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Darot, Mireille

1983-01-01

The usefulness of classifications within and comparisons among languages as a means of discovering the commonalities of human language is discussed. Metalinguistics offers not only the potential for analyzing the specifics of each language, but also the tools for teaching across languages. (MSE)

Galen-In-Use: using artificial intelligence terminology tools to improve the linguistic coherence of a national coding system for surgical procedures.

PubMed

Rodrigues, J M; Trombert-Paviot, B; Baud, R; Wagner, J; Meusnier-Carriot, F

1998-01-01

GALEN has developed a language independent common reference model based on a medically oriented ontology and practical tools and techniques for managing healthcare terminology including natural language processing. GALEN-IN-USE is the current phase which applied the modelling and the tools to the development or the updating of coding systems for surgical procedures in different national coding centers co-operating within the European Federation of Coding Centre (EFCC) to create a language independent knowledge repository for multicultural Europe. We used an integrated set of artificial intelligence terminology tools named CLAssification Manager workbench to process French professional medical language rubrics into intermediate dissections and to the Grail reference ontology model representation. From this language independent concept model representation we generate controlled French natural language. The French national coding centre is then able to retrieve the initial professional rubrics with different categories of concepts, to compare the professional language proposed by expert clinicians to the French generated controlled vocabulary and to finalize the linguistic labels of the coding system in relation with the meanings of the conceptual system structure.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Schaumberg, Andrew

The Omics Tools package provides several small trivial tools for work in genomics. This single portable package, the “omics.jar” file, is a toolbox that works in any Java-based environment, including PCs, Macs, and supercomputers. The number of tools is expected to grow. One tool (called cmsearch.hadoop or cmsearch.local), calls the external cmsearch program to predict non-coding RNA in a genome. The cmsearch program is part of the third-party Infernal package. Omics Tools does not contain Infernal. Infernal may be installed separately. The cmsearch.hadoop subtool requires Apache Hadoop and runs on a supercomputer, though cmsearch.local does not and runs on amore » server. Omics Tools does not contain Hadoop. Hadoop mat be installed separartely The other tools (cmgbk, cmgff, fastats, pal, randgrp, randgrpr, randsub) do not interface with third-party tools. Omics Tools is written in Java and Scala programming languages. Invoking the “help” command shows currently available tools, as shown below: schaumbe@gpint06:~/proj/omics$ java -jar omics.jar help Known commands are: cmgbk : compare cmsearch and GenBank Infernal hits cmgff : compare hits among two GFF (version 3) files cmsearch.hadoop : find Infernal hits in a genome, on your supercomputer cmsearch.local : find Infernal hits in a genome, on your workstation fastats : FASTA stats, e.g. # bases, GC content pal : stem-loop motif detection by palindromic sequence search (code stub) randgrp : random subsample without replacement, of groups randgrpr : random subsample with replacement, of groups (fast) randsub : random subsample without replacement, of file lines For more help regarding a particular command, use: java -jar omics.jar command help Usage: java -jar omics.jar command args« less

Understanding the CCA Standard Through Decaf

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kumfert, G

2003-04-17

This document is a tutorial on the CCA Standard as realized through the Decaf implementation. Decaf does not equal the CCA standard much in the same way that Microsoft Visual C++ is not ANSI/ISO C++. This document was created because the CCA standard is evolving and still too fluid to nail down in a tutorial document. Because of its fluidity, and that it represents a hotbed of research and development, beginners can only start learning CCA by choosing one of the frameworks (warts and all). Decaf has just enough functionality to be a useful tool for beginners in the CCAmore » to get started on. Though it lacks many features of the bigger CCA frameworks (CCAFE [3], XCAT [10], and SciRUN [8]) where the heavy-duty research is still going on, it is the first CCA framework that is underpinned by Babel, which provides its language interoperability features. This document can also serve the dual-purpose of providing a reasonable-sized example of building an application using Babel. The entire source for Decaf is included in the examples/subdirectory of the Babel code distribution. This manual assumes the reader is a programmer who has a conceptual understanding of the Babel Language Interoperability Tool. They should be proficient in two or more of the following languages: Fortran77, C, C++, Java, or Python. Furthermore, this manual assumes the reader is familiar with the SPMD{sup 2} programming model that pervades the scientific computing community. Knowledge of and experience with MPI programming is helpful, but not strictly required.« less

Web-Based Intervention Programs for Depression: A Scoping Review and Evaluation

PubMed Central

Renton, Tian; Tang, Herman; Ennis, Naomi; Cusimano, Michael D; Bhalerao, Shree; Schweizer, Tom A

2014-01-01

Background Although depression is known to affect millions of people worldwide, individuals seeking aid from qualified health care professionals are faced with a number of barriers to treatment including a lack of treatment resources, limited number of qualified service providers, stigma associated with diagnosis and treatment, prolonged wait times, cost, and barriers to accessibility such as transportation and clinic locations. The delivery of depression interventions through the Internet may provide a practical solution to addressing some of these barriers. Objective The purpose of this scoping review was to answer the following questions: (1) What Web-delivered programs are currently available that offer an interactive treatment component for depression?, (2) What are the contents, accessibility, and usability of each identified program?, and (3) What tools, supports, and research evidence are available for each identified program? Methods Using the popular search engines Google, Yahoo, and Bing (Canadian platforms), two reviewers independently searched for interactive Web-based interventions targeting the treatment of depression. The Beacon website, an information portal for online health applications, was also consulted. For each identified program, accessibility, usability, tools, support, and research evidence were evaluated and programs were categorized as evidence-based versus non-evidence-based if they had been the subject of at least one randomized controlled trial. Programs were scored using a 28-point rating system, and evidence- versus non-evidence-based programs were compared and contrasted. Although this review included all programs meeting exclusion and inclusion criteria found using the described search method, only English language Web-delivered depression programs were awarded an evaluation score. Results The review identified 32 programs meeting inclusion criteria. There was a great deal of variability among the programs captured in this evaluation. Many of the programs were developed for general adolescent or adult audiences, with few (n=2) focusing on special populations (eg, military personnel, older adults). Cognitive behavioral therapy was the most common therapeutic approach used in the programs described. Program interactive components included mood assessments and supplementary homework sheets such as activity planning and goal setting. Only 12 of the programs had published evidence in support of their efficacy and treatment of depressive symptoms. Conclusions There are a number of interactive depression interventions available through the Internet. Recommendations for future programs, or the adaptation of existing programs include offering a greater selection of alternative languages, removing registration restrictions, free trial periods for programs requiring user fees, and amending programs to meet the needs of special populations (eg, those with cognitive and/or visual impairments). Furthermore, discussion of specific and relevant topics to the target audience while also enhancing overall user control would contribute to a more accessible intervention tool. PMID:25249003

Web-based intervention programs for depression: a scoping review and evaluation.

PubMed

Renton, Tian; Tang, Herman; Ennis, Naomi; Cusimano, Michael D; Bhalerao, Shree; Schweizer, Tom A; Topolovec-Vranic, Jane

2014-09-23

Although depression is known to affect millions of people worldwide, individuals seeking aid from qualified health care professionals are faced with a number of barriers to treatment including a lack of treatment resources, limited number of qualified service providers, stigma associated with diagnosis and treatment, prolonged wait times, cost, and barriers to accessibility such as transportation and clinic locations. The delivery of depression interventions through the Internet may provide a practical solution to addressing some of these barriers. The purpose of this scoping review was to answer the following questions: (1) What Web-delivered programs are currently available that offer an interactive treatment component for depression?, (2) What are the contents, accessibility, and usability of each identified program?, and (3) What tools, supports, and research evidence are available for each identified program? Using the popular search engines Google, Yahoo, and Bing (Canadian platforms), two reviewers independently searched for interactive Web-based interventions targeting the treatment of depression. The Beacon website, an information portal for online health applications, was also consulted. For each identified program, accessibility, usability, tools, support, and research evidence were evaluated and programs were categorized as evidence-based versus non-evidence-based if they had been the subject of at least one randomized controlled trial. Programs were scored using a 28-point rating system, and evidence- versus non-evidence-based programs were compared and contrasted. Although this review included all programs meeting exclusion and inclusion criteria found using the described search method, only English language Web-delivered depression programs were awarded an evaluation score. The review identified 32 programs meeting inclusion criteria. There was a great deal of variability among the programs captured in this evaluation. Many of the programs were developed for general adolescent or adult audiences, with few (n=2) focusing on special populations (eg, military personnel, older adults). Cognitive behavioral therapy was the most common therapeutic approach used in the programs described. Program interactive components included mood assessments and supplementary homework sheets such as activity planning and goal setting. Only 12 of the programs had published evidence in support of their efficacy and treatment of depressive symptoms. There are a number of interactive depression interventions available through the Internet. Recommendations for future programs, or the adaptation of existing programs include offering a greater selection of alternative languages, removing registration restrictions, free trial periods for programs requiring user fees, and amending programs to meet the needs of special populations (eg, those with cognitive and/or visual impairments). Furthermore, discussion of specific and relevant topics to the target audience while also enhancing overall user control would contribute to a more accessible intervention tool.

The Geoinformatica free and open source software stack

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jolma, A.

2012-04-01

The Geoinformatica free and open source software (FOSS) stack is based mainly on three established FOSS components, namely GDAL, GTK+, and Perl. GDAL provides access to a very large selection of geospatial data formats and data sources, a generic geospatial data model, and a large collection of geospatial analytical and processing functionality. GTK+ and the Cairo graphics library provide generic graphics and graphical user interface capabilities. Perl is a programming language, for which there is a very large set of FOSS modules for a wide range of purposes and which can be used as an integrative tool for building applications. In the Geoinformatica stack, data storages such as FOSS RDBMS PostgreSQL with its geospatial extension PostGIS can be used below the three above mentioned components. The top layer of Geoinformatica consists of a C library and several Perl modules. The C library comprises a general purpose raster algebra library, hydrological terrain analysis functions, and visualization code. The Perl modules define a generic visualized geospatial data layer and subclasses for raster and vector data and graphs. The hydrological terrain functions are already rather old and they suffer for example from the requirement of in-memory rasters. Newer research conducted using the platform include basic geospatial simulation modeling, visualization of ecological data, linking with a Bayesian network engine for spatial risk assessment in coastal areas, and developing standards-based distributed water resources information systems in Internet. The Geoinformatica stack constitutes a platform for geospatial research, which is targeted towards custom analytical tools, prototyping and linking with external libraries. Writing custom analytical tools is supported by the Perl language and the large collection of tools that are available especially in GDAL and Perl modules. Prototyping is supported by the GTK+ library, the GUI tools, and the support for object-oriented programming in Perl. New feature types, geospatial layer classes, and tools as extensions with specific features can be defined, used, and studied. Linking with external libraries is possible using the Perl foreign function interface tools or with generic tools such as Swig. We are interested in implementing and testing linking Geoinformatica with existing or new more specific hydrological FOSS.