January 1989 Table of Contents | Communications of the ACM

Home → Magazine Archive → January 1989 (Vol. 32, No. 1)

News track

Rosalie Steier

Pages 1-2

President's letter

Bryan Kocher

Pages 3-ff.

ACM forum

Robert L. Ashenhurst

Pages 4-6

Editorial

Peter J. Denning

Pages 7-8

Computing as a discipline

The final report of the Task Force on the Core of Computer Science presents a new intellectual framework for the discipline of computing and a new basis for computing curricula. This report has been endorsed and approved for …

D. E. Comer, David Gries, Michael C. Mulder, Allen Tucker, A. Joe Turner, Paul R. Young

Pages 9-23

The computer bowl

Karen A. Frenkel

Pages 24-31

A simple approach to specifying concurrent systems

Over the past few years, I have developed an approach to the formal specification of concurrent systems that I now call the transition axiom method. The basic formalism has already been described in [12] and [1], but the formal …

Leslie Lamport

Pages 32-45

Can the field of MIS be disciplined?

Preoccupations about the present and future evolution of MIS as a scientific field seem to be gaining popularity among researchers. The authors contend that most models used by the investigators of the MIS field have been based …

Claude Banville, Maurice Landry

Pages 48-60

Fifth annual UCLA survey of business school computer usage

This year's survey takes a look at where business schools are in terms of computerization, providing useful information for deans and others involved in making computer related allocation decisions and program plans.

Jason L. Frand, Julia A. Britt

Pages 62-76

An adaptive dependency source model for data compression

By dynamically recoding data on the basis of current intercharacter probabilities, the entropy of encoded messages can be significantly reduced.

David M. Abrahamson

Pages 77-83

Spreadsheet analysis and design

Although spreadsheet programs and microcomputers have revolutionized information processing in organizations, a significant number of serious errors have been reported through the misuse of this technology. This article discusses …

Boaz Ronen, Michael A Palley, Henry C. Lucas

Pages 84-93

A definition optimization technique used in a code translation algorithm

Data flow analysis is used to optimize variable definitions in a program that translates microprocessor object code to a higher order language.

David M. DeJean, George W. Zobrist

Pages 94-105

Error detecting decimal digits

Decimal-oriented error detection schemes are explored in the context of one particular company project.

Paul Putter, Neal R. Wagner

Pages 106-110

Efficient distributed event-driven simulations of multiple-loop networks

Simulating asynchronous multiple-loop networks is commonly considered a difficult task for parallel programming. Two examples of asynchronous multiple-loop networks are presented in this article: a stylized queuing system and …

B. D. Lubachevsky

Pages 111-123

Fast parallel thinning algorithms: parallel speed and connectivity preservation

A recently published parallel thinning approach [4] is evaluated. An improvement is suggested to enable preservation of certain diagonal lines which are not preserved by this algorithm. A unified notion of what is meant by an …

R. W. Hall

Pages 124-131

Concurrent operations on priority queues

Among the fastest priority queue implementations, skew heaps have properties that make them particularly suited to concurrent manipulation of shared queues. A concurrent version of the top down implementation of skew heaps can …

Douglas W. Jones

Pages 132-137

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