Communications of the ACM articles from November 1996

Communications of the ACM archives from November 1996

The relationship between theory and practice in software engineering.
November 1, 1996... Reality is the murder of a beautiful theory by a gang of ugly facts. I want to say something radical at the outset of this new incarnation of an old Communications column. I believe in software practice, and I believe in software practitioners....

Sketching a national information warfare defense plan.
November 1, 1996... The irresistible force of computer technology has collided with the immovable object of government policy - national security. The collision was acknowledged when the White House quietly announced its intention to sketch out a defense policy for...

Are computer games good? (response to Nolan Bushnell, Communications of the ACM, p. 31, Aug. 1996)
November 1, 1996... Nolan Bushnell's article "Relationship Between Fun and the Computer Business" (Aug. 1996, p. 31) contained many examples of computer fun and games leading to important computer innovations and developments. Bushnell's point that games have...

Data mining and knowledge discovery in databases.
November 1, 1996... Now that we have gathered so much data, what do we do with it? This question has become common in many organizations. The culprit is the digital revolution; digitized information is easy to capture and fairly inexpensive to store. But why do...

The KDD process for extracting useful knowledge from volumes of data. (knowledge discovery in databases)
November 1, 1996... Knowledge Discovery in Databases creates the context for developing the tools needed to control the flood of data facing organizations that depend on ever-growing databases of business, manufacturing, scientific, and personal information. As...

Statistical inference and data mining.
November 1, 1996... Statistics may have little to offer the search architectures in a data mining search, but a great deal to offer in evaluating hypotheses in the search, in evaluating the results of the search, and in applying the results. Data mining aims to...

Mining business databases.
November 1, 1996... Ad hoc techniques - no longer adequate for sifting through vast collections of data are giving way to data mining and knowledge discovery for turning corporate data into competitive business advantage. The amount of data collected and...

The data warehouse and data mining.
November 1, 1996... The data miner fortunate to work on a data warehouse foundation - which offers data that is clean, integrated, and complete - enjoys success that comes from being able to exploit this data as a resource. There is a symbiotic relationship...

Mining scientific data.
November 1, 1996... Digesting millions of data points, each with tens or hundreds of measurements - generally beyond a scientist's human capability - can be turned over to data mining techniques for data reduction, which functions as an interface between the...

A database perspective on knowledge discovery.
November 1, 1996... The concept of data mining as a querying process and the first steps toward efficient development of knowledge discovery applications are discussed. Database mining is not simply another buzzword for statistical data analysis or inductive...

The World Wide Web: quagmire or gold mine?
November 1, 1996... Is information on the Web sufficiently structured to facilitate effective Web mining? Skeptics believe the Web is too unstructured for Web mining to succeed. Indeed, data mining has been applied traditionally to databases, yet much of the...

A new methodology for debugging scientific applications.
November 1, 1996... Accounting for discrepancies in large scientific codes, a tedious but necessary task for developers, is automated through use of the Guard relative debugger. Large scientific codes are constantly evolving. Refinements in understanding physical...

A practical model of parallel computation.
November 1, 1996... A new parallel machine model reflects the critical technology trends underlying parallel computers Our goal is to develop a model of parallel computation that will serve as a basis for the design and analysis of fast, portable parallel...

Anchoring data quality dimensions in ontological foundations.
November 1, 1996... Poor data quality can have a severe impact on the overall effectiveness of an organization. A leading computer industry information service firm indicated that it "expects most business process reengineering initiatives to fail through lack of...

Idiomatic design. (computer systems)
November 1, 1996... Suit the action to the word, the word to the action - William Shakespeare I cringe when people talk about object-oriented design outside the context of a specific problem. Design is part of a solution, not of a problem, so taking...

Distributed systems have distributed risks.
November 1, 1996... With the dramatic growth of the Internet and World-Wide Web, computer-communication activities are becoming increasingly distributed - including processing, control, data, network management, accountability, and security. Unfortunately, the risks...

Experience the future of computing at ACM97 Expo. (interview with Exposition director David Kasik)(Interview)
November 1, 1996... Along with a Conference that features an outstanding group of speakers, the ACM97 Expo will be one of major attractions at ACM97 next March in San Jose, CA. As Exposition Director, David Kasik comes well prepared for the job. He began working...

James Burke to moderate ACM97.
November 1, 1996... ACM has chosen James Burke to moderate the upcoming ACM97 conference and exposition, to be held March 1-5 in San Jose, CA. Burke is a world-renowned television host, author, educator, and lecturer who is well respected for his commentary on the...

Build your own Web site! (software for creating home pages in the World Wide Web)
November 1, 1996... As part of a continuing effort to increase benefits to members, ACM is pleased to announce yet another new participant in its Member Value Plus Program - Tapestry 2.0. This web page building tool, developed by Concept 1 Communications, Inc., is...

'Win-a-laptop' Student Sweepstakes.
November 1, 1996... It's time once again for students to try their luck in the ACM Student Sweepstakes. The prize - a Compaq LTE 5000 notebook computer valued at $2,900. The ACM Student Sweepstakes is designed to generate campus awareness of the Association and...

Charter your chapter the quick and easy way. (Association for Computing Machinery Chapters)
November 1, 1996... ACM Chapters provide an organizational structure for members to stay in touch professionally and to contribute to the ever-changing technological changes in computing. Recently chartered chapters include the San Diego Special Interest Group...

Washington DC Chapter organizes Professional Development Program. (Association for Computing Machinery)
November 1, 1996... ACM's Washington DC Professional Chapter is presenting a two-track Professional Development program from Monday to Friday, November 4 to 8, 1996. A track on "The Internet and the World Wide Web" provides something for people at every level of...

CACM realigns editorial focus. (Communications to the ACM periodical)
November 1, 1996... Recent surveys indicate that 80% of ACM's members are industry practitioners working as developers, designers, programmers, and engineers; 20% represent the academic and government sectors. To better serve ACM's evolving membership, the...

ACM's magazine program is growing. (Association for Computing Machinery)
November 1, 1996... Over the past 10 years, ACM's membership has increasingly added more and more application developers and professional practioners to its traditional core of research scientists and academics. To address the needs of its newer members, the...

Quarterly Journal of Graphic Tools discounted for ACM members. (Association for Computing Machinery)
November 1, 1996... ACM members can now subscribe at a discounted rate of $35 (individual and institutional) to the new, quarterly Journal of Graphic Tools (JGT), published by A K Peters, Ltd. The journal's mission is to bridge the gap between new research ideas and...

ACM HQ electronic publishing update. (Association for Computing Machinery)
November 1, 1996... ACM's electronic publishing production system is approaching live operations and several current issues are presently moving through the system. Articles have been extracted from the database, assembled into issues, and locally composed for...

New ACM electronic community centers project. (Association for Computing Machinery)
November 1, 1996... ACM has announced the formation of a new committee to study the possible role that ACM can play in the development of electronic community centers. The committee has been formed in order to compliment other ACM electronic initiatives in...

ACM's SIGSAC comes into its own. (Association for Computing Machinery)
November 1, 1996... Founded in the early 80s, SIGSAC has become increasingly active over the past 5 years. The 900-member SIG focuses its concern all aspects of information and system security encompassing security technologies, systems applications and policies....

ACM German Chapter: David playing with Goliath. (Association for Computing Machinery)
November 1, 1996... Last February at ACM Computing Week '96, the ACM German Chapter was honored as the Association's first international chapter. Former Vice Chair Peter Gorny notes that the chapter was founded in 1963, just one year before the German Informatics...