107670826
Stepping stones in the mist
Publisher Summary This chapter provides an idiosyncratic and nonrigorous account of the author's work as an artist who has been involved in the field now known as artificial life for over 30 years. The title is a metaphor for the author's view as an artist, and individual. A long time ago the author stepped off the bank of a misty river or lake and onto a line of stepping stones. Now, many years later, the stepping stones are shrouded in the mist. Those behind him are dimmed by the mists of memory, and those in front are hidden by the mists of uncertainty. The one in front of him is quite clear, but then they quickly fade as they progress. The author has no idea what lies on the further bank, or indeed if such a shore even exists! Memories of the bank he left are now long eroded. The author only really knows where he is at this moment or, perhaps, where he has just been.
5310188
My gasket
215887286
What next? A provocative look at curriculum, creativity and organization in teaching artists and designers to use computers
17228561
DAMIA - A Data Mashup Fabric for Intranet Applications
Damia is a lightweight enterprise data integration service where line of business users can create and catalog high value data feeds for consumption by situational applications. Damia is inspired by the Web 2.0 mashup phenomenon. It consists of (1) a browser-based user-interface that allows for the specification of data mashups as data flowfgraphs using a set of operators, (2) a server with an execution engine, as well as (3) APIs for searching, debugging, executing and managing mashups. Damia offers a framework and functionality for dynamic entity resolution, streaming and other higher value features particularly important in the enterprise domain. Damia is currently in perpetual beta in the IBM Intranet. 
 
In this demonstration, we showcase the creation and execution of several enterprise data mashups, thereby illustrating the architecture and features of the overall Damia system.
5349915
Distributed Component Database Management Systems
Publisher Summary A component database management system (DBMS) is a system software framework that application developers can extend by embedding modules of programming logic in it. These extensions implement database objects such as new data types, application-level object classes, analytic algorithms, and external data-access facilities. This chapter describes how distributed object relational database management systems (ORDBMSs) are constructed and how they can be used. Distributed component DBMSs such as ORDBMSs are useful because they address requirements that are not served well by traditional distributed systems technologies. Distributed ORDBMSs constitute a powerful, innovative model for generalized distributed computing. It is a unique technology that provides a framework for managing both logic and data in an abstract data model. This review is useful because the commercial versions of distributed ORDBMSs take such a system as a starting point and because detailed descriptions of ORDBMS internals are not widely available. Instances of these single-site ORDBMSs run on each node of the overall distributed system. Furthermore, this chapter outlines the architecture of a distributed ORDBMS and describes the modifications that are necessary for a single-site ORDBMS to operate in a distributed environment.
59970596
Realism and computer-integrated manufacturing
The basic algorithms for representing synthetic scenes with high degrees of realism are now well developed and generally available. Very high-performance, low-cost computer systems are already on the market. It is now possible for end-users to produce sophisticated images that even two years ago could have been made only by a team of highly trained specialists with access to major computer power. In this paper I predict that one consequence of this revolution will be an expanded definition of the term computer-integrated manufacture (CIM). In particular, the graphic arts systems will become on-line workstations. This will allow pre-production processes like financing and post-production activities like promotion, marketing and training to become users of a single integrated database.
31883432
Implicit Fitness Functions for Evolving a Drawing Robot
We describe an approach to artificially evolving a drawing robot using implicit fitness functions, which are designed to minimise any direct reference to the line patterns made by the robot. We employ this approach to reduce the constraints we place on the robot's autonomy and increase its utility as a test bed for synthetically investigating creativity. We demonstrate the critical role of neural network architecture in the line patterns generated by the robot.
2984369
BigSur: A System For the Management of Earth Science Data
In this paper we present a prototype system for the management of earth science data which is novel in that it takes a DBMS centric view of the the task. Our prototype -called "BigSur" -is shown in the context of its use by two geographically distributed scientific groups with demanding data storage and processing requirements. BigSur currently stores 1 Terabyte of data, about one thousandth of the volume EOSDIS must store. We claim that the design principles embodied in BigSur provide sufficient flexibility to achieve the difficult scientific and technical objectives of Mission to Planet Earth.