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True automation in the office comes when the initiation of activities is aided by the system rather than the system merely serving as a passive tool to assist when the person asks. In this vein, it has been built upon the SCOOP and SEED database systems an office automation system which keeps track of the promises made to people, and vice versa.

If the much touted 'office of the future' is finally here, what comes next? This paper describes some of the thoughts and observations of what the research community, and more advanced users are working on and looking forward to as office automation technology becomes widespread and mature. (Author)

This paper discusses the subject of 'alerters', which can be used in a database management system to provide the capability of informing a user when a specified state of the world (as reflected in the database) is reached. This paper describes recent research in building database management systems which incorporate alerting features, and provides a framework within which this and similar research efforts can be evaluated., Supersedes Rept. no. 75-12-04, AD-A037 437.

This paper discusses the subject of alerters, which can be used in a database management system to provide the same capability of informing a user when a specified state of the world (as reflected in the database) is reached. This paper describes recent research in adding alerting features to database management systems and provides a framework within which this research can be evaluated.

DAISY is the acronym for Decision Aiding Information System, which is being developed by the author and his colleagues in the Department of Decision Sciences at the Wharton School for the Operational Decision Aiding Systems Project of the Office of Naval Research. It is meant to give tactical level decision makers the ability to integrate the latest in information systems, modeling and probabilistic estimation techniques into their own decision making activities. It is not meant to automate decisions, but rather to aid the decision maker (DM) as an intelligent staff officer might. This particular staff officer, however, provides the DM with access to distributed data bases, powerful mathematical modeling techniques, and a means of sequencing through the decision process, taking into account the 'wisdom of the ages,' (i.e., the way in which previous decision makers have acted when confronted with similar situations). This paper attempts to describe the strategy and tactics employed in DAISY with emphasis on what the user sees, in line with the Applications Perspective of this talk. Command and control applications are specifically discussed as well as private sector applications. Additional specifics which may be of more interest to implementers have been included. (Author), Presented at Joint Wharton/Onr Conference on Interactive Information and Decision Support Systems, 7 Nov 75, Univ. of Pa.

A multi-period model of programs and data file assignment in computer networks is presented. In reality, access request patterns are subject to change over time, thus, an optimal file assignment at one period is no longer optimal in the next period. An optimizing procedure for the assignment of programs and data files over time is suggested. This procedure, takes into account both the dependencies between programs and data file and the transition costs incurred by file movements from one assignment at a given period to another assignment at the next period. (Author)

An optimization procedure for the allocation of program and data files in a computer network is presented. This algorithm takes into account the dependencies between files and programs such as occur in real heterogeneous computer networks. Insights into whether or not to convert programs from one computer to another can also be gained from the model. A search procedure for the file location problem is described, along with an example and a possible application of the model.

A study was made of the interrupt handling facilities in the proposed AADC system and associated master executive control (MEC) and programming languages. The type of interrupt generating conditions, both hardware and software, which are relevant and useful to AADC are discussed. Language constructs for interrupt processing in high level languages are made. Then, the need for synchronizing primitives such as the Dijkstra semaphores is shown. A discussion of scheduling methods for processes is presented. (Author)

When the amount of space required for file storage exceeds the amount which can be kept online, decisions must be made as to which files are to be permanently resident, and which mountable. These decisions will affect the number of mount requests issued to the operators. This is often a bottleneck in a computing facility, and reducing the number of mounts thus decreases turnaround time. An optimization model for the assignment of files to disk packs, and packs to either resident or nonresident status is presented. Heuristics are suggested for those cases in which it is inefficient to compute the actual optimum. (Author)

Research in the area of modeling of file processing has been scattered and not well cross referenced. This paper presents a classification scheme for research in the area, and surveys over one hundred papers dealing with optimization or predictive models of file processing. The paper is divided along the lines of the major classification, with different sections dealing with models at device level (drum and disk), access method level (sequential, direct, inverted) structural level (trees) and organization level (hierarchical, multiple. Some possible directions for further research topics in the file processing area are given. (Author), Prepared in cooperation with Cornell Univ., Ithaca, N. Y. Dept. of Operations Research.