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This section presents news briefs related to the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in the U.S. Editor-in-chief William S. Dorn is soliciting papers for the tutorial and survey journal of the ACM. The ACM has decided to reprint "Proceedings of the Decision Tables Symposium, 1926." Paul Armer of RAND Corp. was elected president of the American Federation of Information Processing Societies.

This article presents information on the winning papers of the first annual ACM Communications Student Paper Competition organized by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). First place was given to the paper "Generating Parsers for Affix Grammars," by David R. Crowe of the University of British Columbia. The prize included $250 cash, a trip to ACM 72 to receive the award in person, and a three-year subscription to the ACM serial publication of his choice. Second place was given to the paper "Political Redistricting by Computer," by Robert E. Helbig, Patrick K. Orr, and Robert R. Roediger of Washington University. The prize included $150 cash, and for each author a three-year subscription to the ACM serial publication of his choice. Third place was given to the paper "An Extensible Editor for a Small Machine with Disk Storage," by Arthur J. Benjamin of Brandeis University. The prize included $100 cash, and a three-year subscription to the ACM serial publication of his choice. All of the refereeing of Competition papers was done by graduate students at various colleges and universities.

This article presents several research papers related to computing machinery and computer programs. Designing a system for the analytic processing of mathematical functions around a central syntax processor and permitting the user to work within the context of mathematical syntax leads to a flexible system with a broad range of capabilities. One advantage of the approach mentioned in "A Syntax-Directed Approach to Automated Aids for Symbolic Math," by L. Clapp, is that the basic system can be developed without many a prior restrictions on the nature of the mathematical entities to be processed. Once the basic structure has been developed, the user is free to define and operate within his own system of mathematics by modifying or extending the syntax definitions. In the paper "Programming Languages, Logic and Cooperative Games," by L. Hodes, an application of computers is presented which is not restricted to a single problem area but is perhaps not general purpose enough to be considered programming language, even a problem-oriented one.

This article presents information on various activities organized by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). The Fifth Annual Microprogramming Workshop will be held in the Illini Union of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on September 25 and 26. Sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group on Microprogramming and the 555 Computer Society, this workshop provides a leading forum where active workers in the microprogramming area can hear several formal papers and participate in informal discussion groups oriented to specific topics. Professor Daniel L. Slotnick, director of the Center for Advanced Computation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will be the featured speaker at a banquet on September 25; his topic will be "Parallel Processing." The 1973 San Diego Biomedical Symposium will be held January 31 through February 2, 1973, at the Sheraton-Harbor Island Hotel, San Diego, California. The Symposium theme will be "Innovations in Biomedicine." Technical papers appropriate to the following sessions are invited: aids to clinical care, modeling and analysis, interpretation and data reduction, scanning and image processing, information engineering, and general innovations.

The article presents information on the publication of a book "Applied Statistics, Algorithms," relevant to statistics, by the Royal Statistical Society in cooperation with the Science Research Council's Working Party on Statistical Computing. A policy statement describing the editorial policy appears in "Applied Statistics," Vol. 1. No. 1 (1968). A support paper describing the expected contents of the external specification and making recommendation for the layout of algorithms and for programming strategy will appear in the following issue.

The article reports on developments concerning the activities of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in the United States as of February 1971. ACM has responded to the dip in employment of computer professionals by initiating a program of professional placement seminars. Each seminar consists of three segments: a presentation by the seminar director; a panel discussion by placement and employer personnel followed by a question and answer period; and mock interview sessions conducted on an individual basis between panel members and attendees. Patrick C. Fischer has accepted from Editorial Board Chairman Eric Weiss appointment as Editor-in-Chief, Special Publications. Editor-in-Chief M. Stuart Lynn has announced that, to encourage interest in computer technology among college undergraduates, Communications will annually sponsor a Student Paper Competition.

The article presents information on several conferences and symposiums on computer programs. The National Science Foundation has awarded a grant of $50,500 for a Conference on Computers in the Undergraduate Curricula. It is intended to aid dissemination of plans and actual experiences in the use of computers in under graduate education, particularly in small two and four-year colleges. The Twelfth Annual Symposium on Switching and Automata Theory will be held in East Lansing, Michigan, on October 13-15, 1971. Papers are being sought, describing original research in general areas of switching theory, automata theory, and the theoretical aspects of computers, computation and programming.

This paper modifies an earlier algorithm for converting decision tables into flowcharts which minimize subsequent execution time when compiled into a computer program. The algorithms considered in this paper perform limited search and, accordingly, do not necessarily result in globally optimal solutions. However, the greater search effort needed to obtain a globally optimal solution for complex decision tables is usually not justified by sufficient savings in execution time. There is an analogy between the problem of converting decision tables into efficient flowcharts and the well-understood problem in information theory of noiseless coding. The results of the noiseless coding literature are used to explore the limitations of algorithms used to solve the decision table problem. The analogy between the two problems is also used to develop improvements to the information algorithm in extending the depth of search under certain conditions and in proposing additional conditions to be added to the decision table. Finally, the information algorithm is compared with an algorithm proposed in a recent paper by Verhelst. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes a scheme for symbolic manipulation of index expressions which arise as a by-product of the symbolic manipulation of expressions in the matrix calculi described by the authors in a previous paper. This scheme attempts program optimization by transforming the original algorithm rather than the machine code. The goal is to automatically generate code for handling the tedious address calculations necessitated by complicated data structures. The paper is therefore preoccupied with "indexing by position." The relationship of "indexing by name" and "indexing by position" is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information about various conferences related to the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) that will be held in the year 1972. The 1972 ACM Annual Conference will be held from August 14-16, 1972, in Boston, Massachusetts. A Symposium on Pedagogic Languages with Small Computers will be held from January 6-7, 1972, at the University of Kansas (KU) in Lawrence, Kansas under the joint sponsorship of the ACM Special Interest Group on Programming Languages (SIGPLAN) and the KU Department of Computer Science. A USA-Japan Computer Conference will be held from October 3-5, 1972, in the Toshi Center in Tokyo, Japan. The Society for Information Display will hold its 1972 International Symposium and Exhibition in San Francisco, California from June 6-8, 1972. The ACM SIGPLAN has announced a two-day symposium on Two-Dimensional Man-Machine Communication to be held in Los Alamos, New Mexico, from October 5-6, 1972. The Third Annual Computer Chess Championship will be held at ACM 72 in Boston, Massachusetts from August 14-17, 1972.

The article provides information on the upcoming symposiums related to the computer engineering in 1966. A one-day symposium will be sponsored by ACM, SIAM and Florida State University on March 14 on "The Recommended Impact of Computer Applications on the Undergraduate Mathematics Curriculum." The four New York Metropolitan Area chapters will hold a one-day symposium in New York City on March 18. A session of invited papers will be devoted to "The Application of Computers to the Problems of a Metropolitan Society." In addition, a session of contributed papers on any topics in the computer field is now in the process of being organized . Automatic Data Processing exhibits and workshops headline the Federal Government Accountants Association 15th National Symposium, in Minneapolis, June 15-17. Topics include "Case Studies in ADP," "Programming: The Modern Budget Officer's Tool," and "The Future of Computers in the Federal Government." The Instrument Society of America (ISA) has invited papers for presentation at the 21st Annual ISA Conference and Exhibit, to be conducted October 24-27 in New York City. Theme of the meeting is "Instrumentation for an Urban Society."

The article presents information on professional activities within the Association for Computing Machines (ACM). ACM Southeastern Regional Meeting will be conducted on April 18-20, the ACM Southeastern Region will hold a meeting at the Sheraton-Nashville Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee. The Association for Computing Machinery will sponsor the Sixth International Users Conference on May 14-17 at the Sheraton-Anaheim Hotel in Anaheim California. Coast Community. The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) recently published a booklet for use in its merit badge program on Computing. BSA is now looking for computer professionals to help Scouts attain the required skilk for this badge interested persons should contact their local Boy Scout offices.

This paper discusses both the history and future of programming languages (= higher level languages). Some of the difficulties in writing such a history are indicated. A key part of the paper is a tree showing the chronological development of languages and their interrelationships, Reasons for the proliferation of languages are given. The major languages are listed with the reasons for their importance. A section on chronology indicates the happenings of the significant previous time periods and the major topics of 1972. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the conference sessions of the Association for Computing Machinery to be held in August 1971. Eight Special Interest Groups have arranged panel sessions. Topics of broad current interest will be explored. Advancements in the technology will be ensued, challenges will be issued, and solutions will be sought. Panelists will discuss the many hard economic and regulatory policy decisions which must be made within the framework of a broad overview of today's capital markets. Reports will be given on work in progress for various subjects areas and age levels, with particular attention paid to the contribution of computing professionals, techniques, or theory. A broad range of computer techniques and social applications will be considered including computer programming, data management, simulation, information retrieval, linguistic analysis, and computing systems design. The tutorial session Digital Communications Technology will cover recent advances in data communications technology. The panelists will discuss the important technical achievements of the last several years and their significance to system providers and users.

The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) contains a number of control characters associated with the principle of code extension, that is, with the representation of Information which cannot be directly represented by means of the characters in the Code. The manner of use of these characters has not previously been completely described. This paper presents a set of mutually consistent philosophies regarding code extension applications, and suggests a corollary set of doctrines for the application of the code extension characters. Distinctions are drawn between code extension and such other concepts as "graphic substitution" or "syntactic representation" which are often used to meet similar requirements. Also covered are certain topics which are not truly concerned with code extension but which are often linked with it in discussion on code applications. The material In this paper is equally applicable in principle to the (proposed) ISO international 7-bit code for information interchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A previous paper presented an efficient algorithm, called the Recomputation Algorithm, for evaluating a rational expression to within any desired tolerance on a computer which performs variable-precision arithmetic operations. The Recomputation Algorithm can be applied to expressions involving any variable-precision operations having O(10-... + Σ ∣ε∣) error bounds, where p denotes the operation's precision and ε, denotes the error in the operation's with argument. This paper presents an efficient variable-precision exponential operation with an error bound of the above order. Other operations, such as log, sin, and cos, which have simple series expansions, can be handled similarly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on various chapters of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) across the U.S. The Greater Rio Grande Chapter of ACM has recently extracted from its files a list of the titles of all technical papers presented at Chapter meetings since its inception in 1957. Using a program developed by D.K. Robbins of Sandia Corp., a KWIC-type listing of permuted titles of these papers has been made. This listing has been distributed to all members of the Chapter. Topics and speakers at ACM Chapters across the U.S. indicate the current trends of interest in computer science and data processing. The ACM Tidewater Chapter is sponsoring this spring a professional development course on "Real-Time Computing." The course is given by the Chapter's professional development chairman, Cecil Frost, who is applications staff specialist for Control Data Corp. At its April 21, 1966 meeting, the Westchester-Fairfield Chapter heard William Orchard-Hays speak on "Linear Programming of Computational Techniques."

The article presents information on the 1970 Fall Joint Computer Conference that will be held in Houston, Texas, on November 17-19. The conference will have a truly Texas-sized setting, the Astrohall, the world's largest convention and exhibit structure. The technical program may also appear to be Texas-sized in view of its size and diversity. However, it is not so much the program that has grown as the computer industry. The program has therefore been expanded to reflect new developments in computer usage and technology while maintaining its emphasis on various subjects of continuing importance. One of the chief areas of interest is computer software, its present problems and future promises. Two sessions will be devoted on it. Session 21, chaired by M.A. Melkanoff, University of California at Los Angeles, is devoted to the three principal and self-excluding approaches to long-range programming language development being advocated today. A distinguished panel will present a position paper on each of the three approaches and a fourth position paper on relevant research problems.

This paper introduces the notion of usage counts, shows how usage counts can be developed by algorithms that eliminate redundant computations, and describes how usage counts can provide the basis for register allocation. The paper compares register allocation based on usage counts to other commonly used register allocation techniques, and presents evidence which shows that the usage count technique is significantly better than these other techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sequencing to minimize mean finishing time (or mean time in system) is not only desirable to the user, but it also tends to minimize at each point in time the storage required to hold incomplete tasks. In this paper a deterministic model of independent tasks is introduced and new results are derived which extend and generalize the algorithms known for minimizing mean finishing time. In addition to presenting and analyzing new algorithms it is shown that the most general mean-finishing-time problem for independent tasks is polynomial complete, and hence unlikely to admit of a non-enumerative solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A list of upcoming conferences in computer programming as of March 1973 is provided. These include an interface conference by the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) at Arden House on May 30 to June 1. The ACM North Central Region will hold a conference on virtual memories and systems at the La Salle Hotel in Chicago on May 18 to 19.

This paper discusses the multiplication of conformable sequences of row vectors, column vectors, and square matrices. The minimum time required to evaluate such products on ordinary serial computers as well as parallel computers is discussed. Algorithms are presented which properly parse suck matrix sequences subject to the constraints of the machine organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing amount of software is being implemented in a portable form. A popular way of accomplishing this is to encode the software in a specially designed machine-independent language and then to map this language, often using a macro processor, into the assembly language of each desired object machines The design of the machine-independent language is the key factor in this operation. This paper discusses the relative merits of pitching this language at a high level or a low level, and presents sonic comparative results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In list processing there is typically a growing demand for space during program execution. This paper examines the practical implications of this growth within a virtual memory computer system, proposes two new garbage collection techniques for virtual memory systems, and compares them with traditional methods by discussion and by simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents several research papers relating to algorithms. The paper "Greatest Common Divisor of n Integers and Multipliers" presents an algorithm which calculates the greatest common divisor, IGCD, of n integers. Details of the method and comparisons to other algorithms are also given. The algorithm is a new version of the Euclidean algorithm for n integers. The n-1 calculations of the greatest common divisor of two integers is accomplished by means of a modified version of the Blankinship algorithm. The paper "Exponential Integral Ei (x)" presents the results of one phase of research carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under Contract NAS7-100, sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It presents an algorithm which was compiled and executed without any modification on a UNIVAC 1108 computer. An unfortunate precedent has been set in several recent algorithms of using an illegal FORTRAN construction.

In this paper trade-offs among certain computational factors in hash coding are analyzed. The paradigm problem considered is that of testing a series of messages one-by-one for membership in a given set of messages. Two new hash-coding methods are examined and compared with a particular conventional hash-coding method. The computational factors considered are the size of the hash area (space), the time required to identify a message as a nonmember of the given set (reject time), and an allowable error frequency. The new methods are intended to reduce the amount of space required to contain the hash-coded information from that associated with conventional methods. The reduction in space is accomplished by exploiting the possibility that a small fraction of errors of commission may be tolerable in some applications, in particular, applications in which a large amount of data is involved and a core resident hash area is consequently not feasible using conventional methods. in such applications, it is envisaged that overall performance could be improved by using a smaller core resident hash area in conjunction with the new methods and, when necessary, by using some secondary and perhaps time-consuming test to "catch" the small fraction of errors associated with the new methods. An example is discussed which illustrates possible areas of application for the new methods. Analysis of the paradigm problem demonstrates that allowing a small number of test messages to be falsely identified as members of the given set will permit a much smaller hash area to be used without increasing reject time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Describes the storage program and data representation being used at the Rice University computer programming system. Storage allocation and organization; Simplicity of programmed addressing; Flexibility of data structures; Efficiency of memory utilization.