<$BlogItemTitle$> Welcome to Orcmid's Lair, the playground for family connections, pastimes, and scholarly vocation -- the collected professional and recreational work of Dennis E. Hamilton

 
History, scientific terms, nomenclature, etc. - Numericana (2002-07-05)
What's the name of the end-of-proof box in a mathematical context?
Mathematicians call it a "halmos", after Paul R. Halmos (1916-) who is also credited with the "iff" abbreviation for "if and only if". Typographers call it a "tombstone", which is the name of the character in any nonmathematical context.
Before Halmos had the idea to use it in a mathematical context, it was widely used to mark the end of an article in popular magazines (it still is). Such a tombstone is especially useful for an article which spans a number of columns on several pages, as the end of the article may not be otherwise obvious...
See Math Words... Here's a halmos, at the end of this last line! (the image doesn't copy here.)
posted by Dennis at Saturday, February 15, 2003

 

Artificial Inelligence Materials

USF:CSE LINKS.  The Intelligent Systems Laboratory at the University of San Francisco.
posted by Dennis at Saturday, February 15, 2003

 
IJAR Journal.  The International Journal of Approximate Reasoning.  Generally the computational modeling of any part of the process use by humans to reason about natural phenomena. A print journal.
posted by Dennis at Saturday, February 15, 2003

 
International Society for Artificial Life.  I dunno, I can't get excited about this, especially with the mildly slashdot flavor of the site.  I suppose that in the end we may end up having a sharper notion about life and when it is present or not.
posted by Dennis at Saturday, February 15, 2003

 
Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research.  JAIR is a journal that is published on the web as well as available for purchase in bound volumes.  I should find out more about this, since the on-line editions are hosted at the University of Washington and they are in my backyard.
posted by Dennis at Saturday, February 15, 2003

 
AI on the Web.  A giant compilation of useful goodies on AI, all to be found on the Web.
posted by Dennis at Saturday, February 15, 2003

 
Risks - Artificial Intellegence.  An on-line resource on the risks of AI in society.
posted by Dennis at Saturday, February 15, 2003

 
American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).  Another resource on AI.  I went to the first meeting, at Stanford.  I am looking to see how blured computation-theory results are in this context and whether there is anyone who seriously announces the "end of proof." Not that proof is all that it is cracked-up to be, of course.
posted by Dennis at Saturday, February 15, 2003

 
Online CS Modules: Artificial Intelligence. This week we get to look at AI as part of our overview to Computer Science.  Here's one resource on the topic.
posted by Dennis at Saturday, February 15, 2003

 
Dublin City University: Interoperable Systems Group.  Looking at interoperability of information systems.
posted by Dennis at Monday, February 10, 2003

 
Technical Publications on Database Systems.  A link on some general papers and also the notion of interoperable services, metadata, and other modelling issues.
posted by Dennis at Monday, February 10, 2003

 
NASA leads efforts to build better software - Computerworld.  Along with autonomic computing there is also the Sustainable Computing Consortium, and also a High Dependability Computing Program.  All intended to get at issues of situated software reliability.
posted by Dennis at Monday, February 10, 2003

 
TCM - Toolkit for Conceptual Modeling.  OK, the TCM uses NuSMV which uses SI whatever, and it is used to develop and elaborate conceptual models.  It also has (very XWindows) graphical and editing tools, which is what first attracted my attention.  Another aspect of interest is that it supports both UML and Structured Analysis views/expressions of models.  The UML aspect (at least) is discussed in two books by Wieringa, who is the principal researcher and teacher that manages this work.  There appears to be a very nice documentation set, and that makes it appealing, along with it having a GPL distribution license.
posted by Dennis at Monday, February 10, 2003

 
NuSMV: A New Symbolic Model Checker.  I guess Nu doesn't stand for Norwegian University in this case.  This collaborative activity employs formal methods and automated reasoning to check models.  Something useful to look at.  And my antenna hovers when I run into Italian collaborators, in this case the Universities of Genova and Trento.  This is an LGPL-licensed library system, so that is fascinating too.
posted by Dennis at Monday, February 10, 2003

 
SIM: Satisfiability Internal Module.  A library, developed at the University of Genova, that provides efficient procedures for propositional satisfiability.  The next meeting on SAT solvers is in Italy, as I recall.  Relatively soon, perhaps.  I wandered here because (1) it is in Italy and (2) I was looking at a package on design tools that incorporates model-checking techniques which, in the instance, incorporates SIM.
posted by Dennis at Monday, February 10, 2003

 

Spelling Checkers

GNU Aspell.  Another look at spelling. (I think I just did this one but I am doing it again.)

posted by Dennis at Sunday, February 09, 2003

 
SourceForge.net: Project Info - GNU Aspell.  The SourceForge page for GNU Aspell development.
posted by Dennis at Sunday, February 09, 2003

 
GNU Aspell.  Another checker that is said to be much more capable in making suggested corrections.
posted by Dennis at Sunday, February 09, 2003

 
International Ispell.  A seasoned spelling checker.
posted by Dennis at Sunday, February 09, 2003

 
Realtime Software Patterns and Pattern Design.  Hmm, more on patterns.  It is useful to pay attention to comp.software.eng, comp.object, and comp.software.patterns in newsgroups or other places where these are archived. I need to point that out to my class.
posted by Dennis at Sunday, February 09, 2003

 
Excel Software - CASE Tools for Analysis, Design, Code Generation, Reengineering and UML Modeling.  Why are software-engineering support products so expensive. (I obviously think that $50 is expensive, so your mileage may vary.)  I would like to see this move to the personal level.  I wonder what the hang-up is.  Clearly, most software-engineering is conducted in groups and on enterprise activities of one sort or another, so commercial investment seems to make sense.  And I still wonder about it.  Yes, I think it would be a great thing for software-engineering instruments to be "commoditized."
posted by Dennis at Sunday, February 09, 2003