VIM: A Virtual Multicomputer for Symbolic Applications

Annual Report for 1994

Number of research staff working in each team of the network;

  1. VUB (2): Luc Steels, Walter van de Velde
  2. ILOG (3): Pierre Parquier, Nitsan Seniak, Harley Davis
  3. INRIA (2): Christian Queinnec, Thierry Saura
  4. Southampton (3): David DeRoure, Hugh Glaser, Danius Michaelides, David Pritchard
  5. Bath (4): Julian Padget, Russell Bradford, Andreas Kind, John Fitch, Duncan Batey
  6. Warwick (1): Iain Craig
  7. Kiel (4): Friedeman Simon, Wolfgang Goerigk, Ulrich Hoffman, Heinz Knutzen
  8. GMD FIT.KI (3): Thomas Gordon, Juergen Kopp, Hans Voss
  9. GMD FIRST (3): Angela Sodan, Hua Bi (until August), Heiko Bock
  10. Pisa (2): Giuseppe Attardi, Maria Simi
  11. Salerno (5): Antonio Gisolfi, Enrico Fischetti, Vincenzo Loia, Antonina Dattolo, Biagio Radano
  12. Naples (4): Mario Mango Furnari, Maurizio Giordano, Claudia Di Napoli, Antonio Massaroti
  13. UPC (2): Ulises Cortes, Javier Bejar, MiquelaSnchez, Antonio Moreno
  14. IIIA (2): Enric Plaza, Carles Sierra
  15. Tarragona (2): Vicenc Torra, David Riano, Ramon Sangu"esa

Names and nationalities of staff seconded from one partner to another during the reporting period and the duration of their secondments;

There have been no staff secondments during the first year.

Names and nationalities of additional staff in each team (visiting scientists, fellows) financed by the network contract and the duration of their stays;

  1. Bath (1): Andreas Kind, February 1994-October 1994

For each scientific meeting for which mobility was financed by the contract, date, location, purpose and nature of the meeting, and names of the scientists attending with the name of the team they represented;

03-05 March 1994, GMD, Sankt Augustin.
Purpose:
Get to know each other and each others work; reports about current work related to VIM-Net; identification of common goals and methods; a complete list of speakers and talk titles can be accessed via the VIM WWW home page: http://www.bath.ac.uk/~masjap/VIM.
Nature:
The meeting was organized as a workshop, with oral presentations and time for discussion.
Participants:
Giuseppe Attardi (Pisa), Hua Bi (GMD Berlin), Harry Bretthauer (GMD Bonn), Thomas Christaller (GMD Bonn), Ulises Cortes (UPC, Barcelona), Iain Craig (Warwick), David DeRoure (Southampton), Hugh Glaser (Southampton), Maurizio Giordano (CNR, Naples), Wolfgang Goerigk (CAU, Kiel), Andreas Kind (Bath), Juergen Kopp (GMD Bonn), Vincenzo Loia (Salerno), Julian Padget (Bath), David Pritchard (Southampton), Christian Queinnec (INRIA), David Riano (URV, Tarragona), Josep Roure (UPC, Barcelona), Miquel Sanchez (UPC, Barcelona), Carles Sierra (IIIA, Blanes), Friedemann Simon (CAU, Kiel), Angela Sodan (GMD Berlin), Luc Steels (VUB), Vicenc Torra (URV, Tarragona), Walter Van de Velde (VUB), Hans Voss (GMD Bonn).
04-06 July, Pisa.
Purpose:
Reflection in programming languages and in AI.
Nature:
Small workshop with presentations, discussions and tutorials.
Participants:
Giuseppe Attardi (Pisa), Iain Craig (Warwick), David DeRoure (Southampton), Mario Furnari (Naples), Maurizio Giordano (Naples) Julian Padget (Bath), Enric Plaza (Blanes), David Riano (Tarragona), Carles Sierra (Blanes), Maria Simi (Pisa), Luc Steels (VUB), Vicenc Torra (Tarragona).
04-05 August, Southampton.
Purpose:
Compilation and Mapping.
Nature:
Short presentations and informal discussion.
Participants:
Niel Berrington (Southampton), Hua Bi (GMD FIRST), Russell Bradford (Bath), David DeRoure (Southampton), Hugh Glaser (Southampton), Ben^oit Lanaspre (Southampton), Danius Michaelides (Southampton), Angela Sodan (GMD FIRST).
13-17 September, Salerno.
Purpose:
Issues in classification in multimedia.
Nature:
Informal discussion.
Participants:
Ulises Cortes (UPC), Antonina Dattolo, Enrico Fischetti, Antonio Gisolfi, Vincenzo Loia (Salerno).
04-07 October, Brussels.
Purpose:
Comparison of COMMET and MILORD II.
Nature:
Informal discussion.
Particpants:
Lluis Godo (IIIA), Carles Sierra (IIIA), Luc Steels (VUB), Walter van de Velde (VUB).
22-24 November, Pisa.
Purpose:
Interoperability of Lisp and C.
Nature:
Informal discussion.
Particpants:
Giuseppe Attardi (Pisa), Christian Queinnec (INRIA).
15-17 December, Barcelona.
Purpose:
Distributed processing.
Nature:
Small workshop with tutorials, presentations and discussions; a complete list of speakers and talk titles can be accessed via the VIM WWW home page: http://www.bath.ac.uk/~masjap/VIM.
Particpants:
Giuseppe Attardi (Pisa), Duncan Batey (Bath), Ulises Cortes (UPC), Antonina Dattolo (Salerno), David DeRoure (Southampton), Mario Mango Furnari (Naples), Maurizio Giordano (Naples), Hugh Glaser (Southampton), Wolfgang Goerigk (Kiel), Thomas Gordon (GMD Bonn), Vincenzo Loia (Salerno), Danius Michaelides (Southampton), Antonio Moreno (UPC), Claudia di Napoli (Naples), Julian Padget (Bath), Enric Plaza (IIIA), Carles Sierra (IIIA), Maria Simi (Pisa), Angela Sodan (GMD Berlin), Vicenc Torra (Tarragona), Walter van de Velde (VUB), Hans Voss (GMD Bonn).

Joint publications authored by scientists from more than one of the participating teams;

There is one joint publications across participating teams this year:

V. Torra, U. Cortes, Towards an automatic consensus generator tool: EGAC, IEEE SMC, to be published in May 1995

Database report

In order to avoid tedious retyping and correction of material held in this database the network includes here a brief statement of the overall direction of its collaborations based on what was stated in the agreed work programme.

The three topics which bind this network together are parallel systems, advanced compilation techniques and artificial intelligence (AI) with a common substrate in the programming language Lisp. The research aim of this project is to demonstrate the advantages accruing from the combination of these three technologies to build a virtual multicomputer for large scale symbolic applications. A virtual multicomputer is an ephemeral, persistent machine of available heterogenous computing resources (workstation, shared-memory multiprocessor, distributed memory multiprocessor, array processor). The system supports a virtual processor abstraction to distribute data and tasks across the multicomputer, the actual physical composition of which may change dynamically. Our practical objective is to make it straightforward to prototype dynamic distributed symbolic applications using whatever resources are available (probably networked workstations), but so that the developed program can also be run on more exotic hardware with reprogramming.

Fuller and up-to-date details of activities (past and present) are held on the World Wide Web. In particular, the online repository of project software and information held at Southampton has been set up and is now widely used by the partners. This service has been used for project-related research as well as information dissemination. The repository may be accessed directly with the URL:

http://vim.ecs.soton.ac.uk/

or via the VIM WWW home page:

http://www.bath.ac.uk/~masjap/VIM

Julian Padget, jap@maths.bath.ac.uk, this version January 11, 1995