Peter
J. Denning
Chairman
and Professor
Great principles of computing, foundational practices of
innovation, modeling and analysis of computing system performance, operating
systems.
My first interest is the Great
Principles of Computing Project.
Computing is a science of information processes, not computers. Computation is the principle, the computer is
the tool. Information processes have
been discovered in the deep structures of many fields in science, engineering,
commerce, and even politics. Unlocking
the mysteries of those processes will open many advances in those fields. Computing is helping to pick the lock. In the GP project, we are developing a new
language for discussing the fundamental principles of computing. The framework is already helping to
communicate the joys of computing to young people, who can now see that these
principles help them in their daily lives even when they are unplugged from
computers. It is helping find new
opportunities for innovation by revealing connections between
technologies. It is helping to foster
collaboration between computing and many other fields.
I am deeply interested in the processes
of innovation and transformation and the skills needed to bring about
technological and organizational change.
We have developed a taxonomy of innovation process models based on the
distinctions “descriptive v. generative” and “theoretical v. empirical”. We developed an empirical generative model
that identifies seven foundational practices of innovation. If any of the seven is missing, an innovation
attempt will almost certainly fail.
I am interested in how people responding
to crises and disasters can quickly form effective communication and
coordination networks, and how, through collaboration, they might avert crises,
making response unnecessary.
I retain an interest in the specialties
I helped found over thirty years ago -- operating systems and performance
evaluation. I am also interested in the
design of dependable, reliable, usable, safe, and secure systems.
The Great Principles project provides an
excellent roadmap to the field for our many students who do not have
undergraduate CS degrees. It gives a
language for discussing computing among the many fields that rely on
computing. The innovation project
supports the DoD objectives of educating officers who can design and lead
transformation.
P. Denning (Ed.), The Invisible Future: The
Seamless Integration of Technology in Everyday Life.
McGraw-Hill, 2001.
P.
Denning and R. Medina-Mora, “Completing the Loops,” ORSA/TIMS Interfaces 25, 3 (May-June 1995), 42-57.
P.
Denning, “Professional software engineering education,” Annals of Software Engineering Education 6, 1998, 145-166.
P.
Denning, “The Somatic Engineer." In Leadership & Mastery: Being Human at
Work. (Richard Strozzi Heckler PhD,
ed.), North Atlantic Books (2003).
P. Denning, “Great Principles of
Computing” ACM Communications 46,
11 (November 2003), 15-20.
P. Denning, “The Social Life of Innovation.” ACM Communications 47, 4 (April 2004),
15-19.
P. Denning, “The Field of Programmers
Myth.” ACM Communications 47, 7
(July 2004), 15-20.
P. Denning, “Is Computer Science
Science?” ACM Communications 48,
4 (Apr 2005), 27-31.
P. Denning, “Hastily formed
networks.” ACM Communications 49 (April
2006), 15-20.
P. Denning, “Innovation as language
action.” ACM Communications 49 (May 2006), 47-52.
P. Denning, “Mastering the mess.” ACM
Communications 50 (April 2007), 21-25.
P. Denning, “Computing is a natural
science.” ACM Communcations 50 (July 2007).
Mikhail
Auguston
Associate
Professor
Programming language design
and implementation, compiler construction, software testing and debugging
automation, assertion languages, visual programming, component-based software
engineering, computer security.
Programming language implementation tools: We have designed a
compiler writing language RIGAL. This is a powerful and convenient tool for
rapid prototyping of programming language processors. Examples of implemented
language processors include PASCAL subset assertion checker, AWK assertion
checker, Miranda abstract machine, FrameMaker to BBN/Slate filter, monitor
generator for the Unicon language, and, of course, the RIGAL compiler itself.
Testing
and debugging automation tools: The project includes assertion language development and prototype
design for debugging automation. The approach is based on the notion of event
grammar that is a general basis for program behavior model. A language based on
event patterns and computations over target program execution history can be
used for assertion checking, performance measurement, program profiling,
debugging queries for both sequential and parallel programs, and program
behavior visualization.
The design of the V visual data flow
language: We suggest a
solution for iterative processing in data flow diagrams based on the notion of
a conditional data flow switch, and a specialized iterative construct based on
pattern matching for vectors, matrices, and multisets. Both of these constructs
can be seamlessly incorporated into a data flow visual programming language. We
demonstrate how these constructs may be used to reveal the spatial/temporal
dualism of data streams.
Component-based software design: This is a
collaborative project supported by US ONR. The objectives are to develop a
uniform meta-model for component-based distributed software design, Quality of
Service metrics, and generative domain models.
Computer security: In
collaboration with colleagues from NPS, we are working on the methods and tools
for intrusion detection and countermeasures, based on automatic system kernel
instrumentation.
Software
design automation tools and expressive programming languages are necessary to
improve quality and to facilitate design of complex software systems for
DoN/DoD needs.
M. Auguston, "RIGAL - a
programming language for compiler writing", Lecture Notes in Computer
Science, Springer Verlag, vol.502, 1991, pp.529-564.
M. Auguston, "Building
Program Behavior Models,"
ECAI-98 Workshop on Spatial
and Temporal Reasoning, Brighton,
England, August
23-28, 1998, pp.19-26.
M. Auguston, Tools for
Program Dynamic Analysis, Testing, and Debugging Based on Event Grammars, in
Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Software Engineering and
Knowledge Engineering, Chicago, USA, July 6-8, 2000, pp.159-166
M. Auguston, C. Jeffery and
S. Underwood, "A Framework for Automatic Debugging," Proceedings of
the IEEE 17th International Conference on Automated Software Engineering,
ASE'02, Edinburgh Scotland, September 2002, pp. 217-222
M.
Auguston and A. Delgado, "Iterative Constructs in the Visual Data Flow
language", Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages VL97,
Capri, Italy, September 1997, IEEE Computer Society, pp.152-159.
M.
Auguston, V. Berzins, and B. Bryant, "Visual Meta-Programming
Language," Proceedings of OOPSLA 2001 Workshop on Domain-Specific Visual
Languages, October 14, 2001, pp.69-82, Tampa, Florida
J. Bret Michael, M. Auguston, N. Rowe, R.
Riehle, "Software Decoys: Intrusion Detection and Countermeasures",
Proc. IEEE Workshop on Information Assurance, United States Military Academy,
West Point, NY, June 2002, pp. 130-138.
See http://www.nps.navy.mil/cs/auguston/.
Valdis Berzins
Professor
Computer-aided
software evolution, reliable software architecture, formal models that support
engineering automation, program generators, interoperability, requirements and
risk reduction.
A
main goal is improved methods for simultaneously achieving software flexibility
and reliability at low cost. We are developing lightweight inference and
software generation schemata to support automatic generation of domain-specific
software that is correct by construction. By certifying program generation
patterns once, we will assure the reliability of all programs that can be
generated from those patterns.
On a
larger scale, we are investigating methods for defining and validating
dependable software architectures that support planned reconfiguration. The
methods establish that given invariant requirements are met in all possible
configurations of the architecture relative to associated standards. As long as
all components and interactions conform to the standards, the invariant
requirements will be met in all configurations, enabling safe and rapid change
among all combinations of pre-certified components and connectors.
A
formal model has a precise and well-defined meaning that can readily be
interpreted and processed by computer. We are investigating methods and tools
for partially automating many aspects of software development, including
combining several changes to a software system with provable guarantees of
correctness. The goal is more effective computer-aided design in evolution of
large software systems. This work has potential applications to software
maintenance, view integration in specifications, version control in design
databases, and multiple inheritance in specification or programming languages.
We have investigated change merging for specifications architectures and
software prototypes of real-time systems.
Improving
system flexibility, reducing costs and improving quality of software are major
concerns in DoD. Software evolution accounts for the lion's share of the cost.
Our
work is addressing these issues via development of sound methods that can support
partial automation, particularly for software maintenance and evolution.
Luqi, V. Berzins,
William Roof, “Nautical Predictive Routing Protocol (NPRP) for the
Dynamic Ad-Hoc Nautical Network (DANN)”, Springer-Verlag, August, 2006.
Luqi, V.
Berzins, “Achieving Dependable Flexibility via Quantifiable System
Architectures”, Workshop on Advances
in Computer Science and Engineering, Berkeley, CA,
May 6, 2006.
Y. Qiao, H. Wang,
Luqi, V. Berzins, “An Admission Control Method for Dynamic Software
Reconfiguration in Complex Embedded Systems”, International Journal of Computers and Their Application, Vol.13,
No.1, March, 2006, pp. 28-38.
Luqi, L. Zhang, V.
Berzins, Y. Qiao, “Documentation Driven Development for Complex Real-Time Systems”,
IEEE Transaction on Software Engineering,
Vol. 30, No.12, December 2004, pp. 936-952.
Luqi, Z. Guan, V.
Berzins, L. Zhang, D. Floodeen, V. Coskun, J. Puett, and M. Brown,
“Requirements Document Based Prototyping of CARA Software”, International Journal on Software Tools for
Technology Transfer, Vol.5, No.4, May 2004, pp. 370-390.
V.
Berzins, "Lightweight Inference for Automation Efficiency", Science
of Computer Programming, Vol. 42, pp. 61-74, 2002.
V.
Berzins, "Recombining Changes to Software Specifications", Journal
of Systems and Software, 42, 2, pp. 165-174, August 1998.
V.
Berzins and D. Dampier, "Software Merge: Combining Changes to
Decompositions", Journal of Systems
Integration, 6, 1-2, 1996, pp. 135-150.
