Contents

  1. Dynascope: a Platform for Building Directors
  2. Guard: a Relative Debugger
  3. N-Queens, Constraint Satisfaction, Local Search
  4. Living Computers
  5. Nimrod: a Hunter for Workstations
  6. Parallel Computer Demonstrator

Dynascope: a Platform for Building Directors

Dynascope provides primitives for building directors. Directors are programs which perform monitoring and debugging operations. Typical such operations include controlling the execution of other programs, sampling and modifying process data, and handling of breakpoints.

The project home page includes a description of the project, a software distribution, reference materials and a bibliography.

Guard: a Relative Debugger

Guard implements a debugging paradigm called relative debugging, which allows a user to test a program by comparing data structures between the debugged code and a reference version.

The project home page includes a description of the project, a sample debugging session with source code, scripts and results, some exciting movies from the application of Guard to a meso scale weather model and a bibliography.

N-Queens, Constraint Satisfaction, Local Search

The n-queens problem is to place n queens on an N X N chessboard, so that no two queens attack each other. The n-queens problem is a classical search problem, used as a testbed for the development and benchmarking of search algorithms. The n-queens problem is closely related to the constraint satisfaction problem. Our method for solving the n-queens problem is using a probabilistic local search.

The project home page describes the development of a probabilistic local search algorithm for the n-queens problem. The algorithm reduced the complexity from exponential to almost constant time. Some related results in constraint satisfaction and local search are presented as well.

Living Computers

The Living Computers project consists of two main themes. The first theme relates to Artificial Life, which synthesizes and analyzes artificial systems exhibiting life like properties. The second theme relates to Biological Computers, with a goal to synthesize and analyze computational structures from biological molecules.

The project's home page contains bibliography.

Nimrod: a Hunter for Workstations

Nimrod supports multiple executions of the same sequential task, each with a different parameter set, on a network of workstations. This mode of operation is commonly required when large parametric experiments are conducted. Nimrod provides a user customizable interface for task generation, distribution to workstations, execution and collection of results.

The project home page includes a description of the project, a sample screen dump, some exciting visualizations from representative applications and a bibliography.

Parallel Computer Demonstrator

This project demonstrates a parallel computer. The computer consists of 10 personal computers, connected by a network. One computer serves as a master, others are clients. The screens of 9 clients are combined in a large 3 X 3 screen. The computer simulates Brisbane traffic.

The project home page includes a description of the project and color photos of the machine.

sosic@cit.gu.edu.au , 18 Apr 1995