A need for a central information service has emerged from the ongoing programme of HEI visits and from discussions with Prof H Nicholson, the EASE Consultant (see article on page 2). This service would be available to all HEIs and could contain data, or pointers to data, on research topics and expertise, EASE-supported initiatives, engineering package availability etc.
I am leading a small working group in the Informatics Department at RAL which will, over the next four months, specify and investigate the feasibility of a project to implement such an information directory. This newsletter will be used to keep you informed of progress and to seek your views. If you would like more information or have any comments or suggestions please contact me.
The pool of hardware and software available for use by members of the UK academic community has just been significantly upgraded following a £250k allocation by the Engineering Board.
These upgrades bring the Loan Pool in line with recent hardware, and more importantly, software developments.
Loans are made initially for a period of four months with an extension of up to eight months thereafter (one year total) being possible. A software only loan is now permitted. A PC (clone) can also be requested if you do not have one available to you.
Formal applications are required but these can be made at any time of the year. Extensions to the initial loan period are made on the basis of both the progress made and the potential. At the end of the loan a written report is required and also a copy of all software produced, suitably documented. (The software is placed in the Software Exchange operated by the Liverpool Centre Library and is made available to other users under the normal conditions of the Library.)
Applications are particularly invited from researchers with NO experience of the Transputer. In this instance a short introductory course will be provided as part of the loan package.
PC can be provided)
Sun cannot be provided
Multicomputing System (4 Processors, each with 2MB with Fortran and C)
MK200 (4 processors each with 2 MB) plus CSTOOLS
Professor Harry Nicholson has recently been appointed as Consultant for the EASE (Engineering Applications Support Environment) Programme.
He has retired recently from being Head of Department of Control Engineering at the University of Sheffield; a position he held since 1968 following posts as Lecturer in the Control Group, University of Cambridge for seven years and Technical Assistant/Power Station Manager at Unilever Merseyside Limited for seven years, after graduating in Electrical Engineering from the University of Liverpool with first class honours. Subsequent awards have included DEng (Liverpool) and FEng (1985).
His research interests have included the mathematical modelling, simulation and control of a wide range of industrial and biological processes, including power station boilers, multi-machine power systems, steelmaking and manufacturing processes and metabolic pathways. He has a continuing research interest in system theory and computational algorithms and particularly in the basic structural properties of interconnected systems, as found in most physical and biological processes, and which incorporate the fundamental properties of scattering and lattice forms.
Harry has had previous experience with SERC, including membership of the Control Engineering and Information Engineering committees and as chairman and member of the Control Engineering Education and Training Panel. He has a particular interest in multidisciplinary activities within the general field of information technology, and is looking forward to investigating the extent of existing initiatives and also future developments required to support engineering applications work both in the HEIs and in industry. He would welcome any contacts with academic researchers interested in discussing their computer applications work and needs, or who require advice or guidance, and also with industry interested in developments within the EASE Programme.
IMPORTANT ADDITION to the article of this title in Issue 19 of the Newsletter is included here from the author:
"Users of 'Shareware' and 'Public domain' programs are reminded that they are solely and uniquely responsible for the payment of any licence fees or charges that may be incurred as a result of running such programs. The fee usually takes the form of a 'registration charge', which may entitle you to receive future software upgrades, support, bug-fixes and documentation from the software author.
Details of the licensing and any fees payable are usually included in the instructions that accompany the program. Typical fees are 10 to 25 dollars in the case of software originating in the USA. In some instances you may even be able to pay by credit-card.
Please also note that the fees are usually payable PER COPY of the software, so if you distribute copies of such software for use by other people (for example In your laboratory or project-group) they are each required to pay the fees in full. There may, however, be 'site licences' available for some of the more popular software packages - contact the software author for further details."
The Computer Board for Universities and Research Councils is supporting a survey of UK usage and needs of structural mechanics finite element software. The survey will assist the Board and software developers in targeting the key future requirements in both higher education and industry. The Computer Board's aim is to promote the wide availability of high quality UK or European Community Finite Element (FE) software, not subject to US extraterritoriality restrictions. Following the survey, the Board may consider supporting cost-effective developments of commercial software to meet outstanding user requirements.
Dr Roger Anderson, formerly of UKAEA, will carry out the survey on attachment to Manchester Computing Centre, University of Manchester. The survey is being designed in collaboration with the Inter-University Software Committee (IUSC), the SERC Engineering Board's Engineering Applications Support Environment (EASE) Programme, the National Association for Finite Element Methods and Standards (NAFEMS), and a number of FE User Groups.
As part of the survey, a short questionnaire will be widely distributed. This will cover codes used, applications areas and typical problem characteristics. Looking to the future the survey will seek to identify the advanced features and other developments which would encourage more use of codes, as well as restrictive features in current codes. In addition to research needs, requirements for 'user friendliness', conformance to standards, QA, manuals, training etc. will be covered.
It is planned to distribute the questionnaire to users of all types of FE codes by the middle of the Summer, and it is hoped to reach new users of FE codes as well as established ones.
Copies of the questionnaire will be circulated around Easter via the EASE Programme local contacts for each Higher Education Institute. Please respond if you have an interest in FE. If you receive two copies from different sources, please pass one on to another FE user.
The questionnaire will be followed up by more detailed discussions with a sample of responders and with software vendors to establish topics where development would be timely and cost-effective. Final reports to the Computer Board are planned for the Spring of 1991.
Any individual who wishes to ensure that they receive a questionnaire should contact the survey organiser:
The Kent Software Tools is a suite designed to help users of workstations to be more productive. The suite is composed of several independent tools, some general-purpose and some designed to aid C and FORTRAN programming. The tools are in use at over 100 sites including Rolls-Royce, the House of Lords, ICL, Plessey and NatWest Bank. As part of a contract with SERC, the tools are free to SERC grant holders.
An example of one of the general-purpose tools is vdiff, which compares two files. By using the highly interactive workstation environment, vdiff makes file comparison an order of magnitude more effective and pleasant than using a text based utility such as diff.
An example of a programming tool is the ups debugger. To quote an industrial user, This is a letter of praise and admiration for the wonderful tools; vf. Is. vdiff and, most of all, ups. Having used them under both Sun View and X11 I think they are brilliant. Everyone else at this site who has used them is also singing their praises. It makes a real change to get some software which works!
A brochure and order form for the tools are enclosed in this newsletter. Existing Kent Software Tools users can use the order form to request the latest release of the tools.
The Co-operative Research Grants Scheme is designed to encourage academic and industrial cooperation, increase the industrial relevance of academic research, and promote the technological advance of industry, by bringing together educational institutions and industry working as partners in research projects, but stopping short of full collaboration on the model of the Information Engineering Advanced Technology Programme (IEATP).
Co-operative Research Grants are available for research in any scientific or engineering discipline covered by SERC, including IT. Applications are judged, by the appropriate technical committee, on scientific and technical merit and the quality of the co-operation. SERC supports the academic partner by means of a research grant. The industrial partner contributes to this either by doing part of the work itself and/or providing financial or other support to the academic partner.
To be eligible the industrial partner must have appropriate research facilities in the UK; be directly engaged in appropriate industrial operations in the UK; and intend to exploit the results of the research in the UK.
The industrial partner supports the project by means of both direct programme costs and know-how. The direct programme costs can be in the form of cash for general purposes, to buy specific equipment or services or to support staff effort; equipment or materials; or secondment of staff. In-house resources made available for the project may involve labour, services, facilities and materials. Know-how, the company's information and expertise is made available to the research project.
The contribution to the direct programme costs should be at least one-third of the value of the SERC grant. A contribution in cash is not mandatory, but is a good indication of the industrial partner's commitment to the project and of the value of the co-operation.
In assessing the industrial partner's contribution, no allowance for overheads will be made, but an on-cost allowance of up to 20% may be added to staff costs.
In return for its contribution to the project the rights in any patent or IPR arising from the research may be vested in the industrial partner.
Applications (minimum £25(00) are made by the academic partner in association with the industrial partner. Two separate forms are used and they are sent together to SERC by the academic partner. The forms and an explanatory booklet, SERC Research Grants, are obtainable from the academic institution's administration offices.
The case for support should include a description of the programme, its objectives, their significance, and the means of attaining them, the relationship of the programme to other research being undertaken by either partner, and how the partners intend to collaborate on the project.
Information supplied by the industrial partner may be set out separately and identified as commercial in confidence.
Applications may be made at any time. However, SERC operates two grant rounds each year. The relevant JFIT closing dates for each round are 15 October and 15 March. Results are usually known within six months of the closing dates. Successful applicants receive a letter setting out the proposed research grant (which may differ from what was sought), and its terms and conditions. When all parties have confirmed their support, the SERC research grant is announced to the academic institution.
Further information on the scheme, with examples of successful projects, can be found in the brochure, The SERC Co-operative Research Grants Scheme, available within academic institutions, or from the Research Grants Section at SERC, tel. 0793-411083, to which general inquiries should be directed.
Alternatively, interested parties may contact the appropriate SERC committee secretary (see the occasional lists of contacts published in JFIT News).
As reported in earlier issues of this Newsletter, the Computers in Teaching Initiative (CTI) Centre for Engineering was established to provide a service to engineering departments around the country. One of its objectives is to establish and maintain an information database containing details of software used in engineering education.
In the January issue of this Newsletter, results were presented of a survey of 72 university engineering departments on the use of computer simulations. Since then, another three departments have responded bringing the total in the database to 75. Of these, 46 engineering departments report using CAD/CAM packages, and the total number of hours logged exceeds every other category except spreadsheets and word processing.
CAD/CAM is a major industrial activity. The heavy use of these packages may reflect the endeavours of universities to expose undergraduate students to industrially relevant software and similarly to generate taught postgraduate courses with a commercial payback. However, it is equally likely that the complexity of CAD/ CAM packages necessitates long hours to become proficient in using them and this may account for the hours recorded. Somewhat surprising, students in chemical engineering spend many more hours with CAD/CAM packages than do students in other disciplines. However, only two chemical engineering departments provided information of both student numbers and hours of use.
Respondents were asked to enter the number of packages that had been bought-in to their department and the number which had been developed in-house. In addition, they were given the opportunity to list packages by name. Only five departments named the CAD/CAM packages that they had written in-house but there are 4 others in use. Counting the DOGS, AutoCAD and Racal Redac 'families' of packages as one each, there are 43 different bought-in packages listed by respondents. Thirty five of these packages are used by just one department. Three packages, AutoCAD, DOGS, and PAFEC are used by many departments in different disciplines and there are five reports of Racal Redac programs from electrical engineering departments.
Under the AI Support for Engineers programme funded by the Computing Facilities Committee, the AI Applications Institute provides a number of free places on its short courses for EASE-supported researchers. The courses are divided into two technical levels:
The Fundamental AI Courses have no specific prerequisites other than a general awareness of IT and a willingness to learn. On the other hand, the Advanced AI Courses have specific prerequisites which are clearly identified below. All short courses are held on a regular basis, usually every three months, throughout the year.
The introduction to this course is a 2-day module. Two fundamental problem solving strategies are presented: state space search and problem reduction. The need for search in problem solving is described and various search algorithms (heuristic and otherwise) are covered. The basic issues in planning are discussed in detail using existing systems in the literature as exemplars. These issues include representations for plans, techniques for constructing plans, and the role of search.
This 2-day module enables the attendee to understand the fundamental issues involved in the building and using of expert systems. The essential aspects of knowledge representation formalisms are taught and four major expert systems are described.
The aim of this module is to highlight the similarities and differences between the various programming paradigms used in building knowledge based systems. The three paradigms covered are rule-based programming, logic programming and object-oriented programming. This is a 5-day module with both lectures and practicals.
This is a 3-day course comprising both lectures and practical sessions. The aim is to provide the practical know ledge needed to write and understand Prolog programs, based on an understanding of the relevant theoretical issues. The course is suitable for anyone wishing to obtain a working knowledge of Prolog, whether with a view to writing software in Prolog or simply assessing its relevance to their particular applications area.
These are very intensive courses and as such attendees with no previous experience will find them fast paced and quite likely too demanding. However, our fundamental AI courses can act as a lead-in to them.
This is an intensive 5-day course on programming in Common Lisp, and is suitable for those wishing to obtain a working knowledge of Common Lisp with a view to writing software. Attendees should have a practical working knowledge of at least one programming language.
ART is introduced over a 2-day teaching period. It is aimed at giving the experienced AI programmer a clear idea of the particular capabilities of this major system, before embarking on project work.
This is an introductory teaching session designed to show the attendee the application areas of KEE and its specific major features. It is expected that the attendee will already be an experienced AI programmer.
The Knowledge Craft introduction lasts two days and highlights the key features of the system. Even though this is an introductory session it is expected that the attendee will already be an AI programmer.
These introductions to the major AI toolkits are concentrated 2-day sessions. Attendees should ideally have:
Following a 2-day introduction, attendees are encouraged to stay and use the system on a trial project.
In January 1990 we introduced our new Knowledge Engineering course. It was very well received and will be repeated in April and October. Another new course that we are working on is Choosing AI Tools.
The development of this course is in response to one of the most common questions we receive from engineers What AI tool should I use in my project? The course will be presented for the first time on 31 May and it will cover topics like mapping applications to tool features, evaluation of tools and methodology for selecting a tool. Some of the AI tools that are currently available will be reviewed and demonstrated. Previous AI experience is not necessary for this course.
Workshops and seminars are organised periodically so that engineers can meet to discuss their common requirements and share their experiences. Our next one day seminar, which will be on Integrating Knowledge Based and Conventional Systems, is scheduled for Friday 11th May 1990. This seminar looks at the interface facilities provided by some of the current AI tools and languages. The systems covered will include Crystal, Goldworks, KEE, Leonardo, Edinburgh Prolog and Xi Plus. AutoCAD, a popular CAD package, with its own embedded version of Lisp - AutoLisp - will also be considered. Demonstration of some of these systems will be provided.
Following the format of our previous seminars, we would like to limit the number of attendees to around thirty. If you are interested in attending, please let us know as soon as possible by filling in and sending back the registration form distributed together with this issue of the Newsletter.
The Centre for Parallel Computing trains people to appreciate the parallel computing techniques and methods using the AMT Distributed Array Processor (DAP). If you are involved in advanced graphics, simulation, textual databases, computationally intensive analysis, image, signal or speech processing, you will discover the advantages of using parallel computing techniques, with some hands-on experience of the Fortran-Plus language. Dates are: 26-30 March, 30 April- 4 May, 2-6 July 1990.
The courses offer managers, designers and implementors of IT systems the opportunity to update their skills in a stimulating and supportive environment, with access to a wide range of expertise drawn from the computer science department and from leading research groups in other Scottish universities. Course subjects include: User Interface Design; Evaluation Techniques for Interactive Systems; IT for Medical Professionals; Knowledge Acquisition: Tools & Techniques; Computer Vision for Industrial Automation; Predictive Intelligent KBS.
I read the results of the EASE server assessment in the March issue of the Engineering Computing Newsletter with some amusement.
It seems amazing that only one manufacturer can meet the EASE requirements for a server, although many companies were approached, all of whom sell networks of workstations and therefore ought to be able to provide the facilities.
The problem is very clearly Coloured Book (CB) software, and one might add the comment that the CB software from the successful supplier (Sun) does not have a good reputation for reliability. This seems to me to be one of the clearest demonstrations that the insistence on CB software is greatly restricting the choice of computers, and workstations in particular, available to workers in the UK.
Is it not time that CB was scrapped and replaced by something widely available, cheap and reliable - like Internet? If we have to keep CB, it could be relegated to inter-university links so that only one computer (or a few) in each institution need run it.
My own experience is that it took far longer to get the CB software working on a standalone Sun 3/60 than it did for everything else. It would also take a lot of effort to maintain, if I could be bothered to do it regularly.
CB software is a major expense on a small workstation, both in the cost of the software itself (including X.25) and in the disk space and other resources consumed. It also makes heavy demands on amateur system administrators, like myself, and must therefore be restricting the growth of workstations through the community as a whole.
One only has to look at the United States, where universities make far better use of networking and have more efficient and cost-effective computing facilities as a result. I am looking forward to the day when my university provides a mail server on an Internet network, and I can scrap CB (and get a lot of free megabytes on my disk). I should add that this is purely a personal view, and does not necessarily reflect the views of my colleagues, department or computing service.
Author's Comment: Please note that JANET protocols are the province ofthe JNT/Network Executive and so beyond our control.
This will explore the current methodologies and applications Numerical methods for vector and parallel processors of KBS in Engineering. This workshop aims to bring together researchers and industrialists applying KBS in the areas of design, manufacturing, process planning, and Engineering aspects. Preference will be given to case studies Further details: of working systems, novel approaches and current projects in CAD/CAM. Furthermore, the workshop will provide a forum for reporting recent research work in these fields and also reviews the motivation for and progress in work utilising the concept of using KBS.
Topics include:
Graphics workstations provide an environment in which human and computer can work closely together In a natural, efficient way. Software, If well-designed, can exploit this environment to make humans many times more productive. The Software Tools Centre was established in 1984 to provide such software.
The Centre, which is based at the University of Kent at Canterbury, has produced a general purpose set of UNIX tools, each designed to benefit a wide class of users. The centre is funded by SERC to act as National Centre to support the SERC research community. The tools have been in use by this community since 1985, and are now distributed to over 100 sites.
Since the tools are designed to make all users more productive, they are just as applicable in industry. The Centre is therefore now marketing ItS tools as commercial products, and counts among its current customers: Rolls-Royce, The House of Lords, STC, DEC, British Telecom and ICL.
UPS is a graphical debugger for C and FORTRAN programs. It is both a post-mortem and a run-time debugger. UPS needs no typed commands; all interaction is by pointing to and/or editing fields on the screen, or selecting menu options. For example, to display the value of a variable the user simply points to its name within the source code listing.
UPS can display all FORTRAN and C data types, including structures, enums, multidimensional arrays, pointers, etc. Structure variables can be expanded to show their contents, pointers can be followed, all at the touch of a button.
Program source is displayed in a scrollable window with the current position highlighted. The user has options such as 'execute to here' to allow easy stepping through the execution of a program.
FS is a graphical file system editor that provides a powerful alternative to my, rm, cp, chmod, etc. It allows the user to Interactively edit filenames, permissions and ownerships. Files can be copied, moved, deleted and undeleted, dllectories can be moved or copied, symbolic or hard links can be created, all with a minimum of effort.
For example: to move files from one directory to another the user simply has to point to the files, select move from the menu, and then point to the destination directory; the files will then be moved.
VDIFF presents the differences between two files in a clear, easy to understand, graphical way. The two files are displayed side by side in scrollable windows, Differing text is highlighted and boxed. Connecting lines are drawn between corresponding text.
Each file has a map beside it showing what is currently being displayed and where the differences are. The user can navigate through the text by scrolling, or simply pointing at the map.
VDIFF also provides a simple facility for combining the two files into a final merged version.
VF is an Intelligent file browser. It recognises most UNIX file types and displays them in the appropriate manner. For example a tarfile is displayed as a list of filenames, and bitmaps are displayed as pictures. VF also recognlses ar files, object files, cursors, Icons, directories, etc. It can also, of course, display text.
GUIDE is a structured document browser that can handle a mixture of pictures and text. Hypertext buttons can be expanded by pointing to them. In this way users can expand the parts of a document they want to see; the current state of a document can be saved at any time.
Pre-processors are available to convert conventional documents into GUIDE documents. For example guide -m can be used to read conventional UNIX manual pages.
RTP is a highly Interactive real-time profiler for programs written in C and/or FORTRAN. Unlike other profilers, RTP shows where time is being spent as the program IS running. A constantly updated histogram shows where time is being spent In each routine, and in each source-line.
The user is presented with a scrollable list of functions and a scrollable source listing, both overlaid with a histogram showing where time is being spent.
Time spent in low level routines can be folded onto higher level routines, thus giving a clear idea of which parts of the program are taking the time.
FORMS provides a menu driven environment for processing FORTRAN source code. Facilities provided include a tool for setting source code layout parameters, the automatic declaration of all variables, transformation of real variables to double precision and vice-versa, conversion of Hollerith to string constants, and modification of expressions to optimize their evaluation.
Processed files can be viewed between operations and are formatted to a user defined standard.
All the tools, with the exception of UPS, run on most workstations supporting UNIX and the X window manager. In addition they run on SUN-3, SUN-4 and SUN-38G workstations under Sunview. The UPS debugger runs on an expanding set of machines including the SUN-3 and the VAX.
