Rex E. Gantenbein

Programming as process: a “novel” approach to teaching programming

This paper introduces the process model as a way of incorporating the software life cycle into beginning computer science courses. This approach, patterned after a successful method for teaching English composition, provides students with an understanding of how all phases of programming can be accomplished. A five-step model of the process and some useful tools for each step are presented as an example and discussed.

Watson, come here! The role of intelligent systems in health care

The use of intelligent systems in health care, while not new, is rapidly increasing with the development of new functions and features. Examples can be found in nearly all the major research areas of intelligent systems, including deduction, perception, prediction, robotics, and natural language, as well as combinations of these. Some barriers still exist to their adoption, including technological capacity and resistance by practitioners, but the evidence of their potential for reducing costs and improving outcomes indicates wider usage to come.

Dynamic binding in strongly typed programming languages

Abstract Dynamic binding, delaying the binding of a name in a program to an object implementing that name, is generally considered to be a property of weakly typed languages. Many strongly typed languages, however, provide methods to dynamically link subprogram bodies to names, although most require static definition of the alternative bodies to maintain compile-time type checking. In strongly typed languages without this feature, access to operating system facilities is a common substitute, but such a mechanism typically is incompatible with compile-time type checking across the interface to the subprograms. A third approach is needed for dynamic binding of separately compiled subprograms under program control. This approach, incorporated into a language, provides the flexibility of the latter method while maintaining strong typing and is useful in many applications, including data base programming and monolingual programming environments.

Responding to catastrophic errors: a design technique for fault-tolerant software

Abstract The usual classification of software-caused system errors as internal, external, or pervasive assumes a rippling propagation of errors through a hierarchy of structures. As a result, most fault-tolerant software handles errors through nested detection and recovery mechanisms. In many cases, particularly in distributed systems, this assumption may not hold; catastrophic errors may occur that can evade the boundaries of the usual mechanisms and cause large-scale system failure. System designers must consider the possibility of failure from the first stages of system development, define the circumstances under which these failures might occur, and analyze the costs of dealing with such failures. Fault-tolerance techniques can be applied to reduce the effect of catastrophic errors. One such technique, dynamic reconfiguration, is described here as an example of a practical way for a system to respond to a detected error. Dynamic reconfiguration can be used not only to recover from software errors but also to remove the faults that caused the errors. An example of the design of a life-critical software system using dynamic configuration to handle potentially catastrophic errors is presented.

The design and implementation of a dynamic feature for a high-level language

Abstract Most high-level programming languages are unable to control the bindings between names and separately compiled implementations of those names at run time, while checking the correctness of such bindings at compile time. This facility is necessary for the use of the language in a monolingual programming environment. This paper describes the semantics of a dynamic binding feature for a block-structured, strongly typed language and the incorporation of the feature into a Pascal implementation.

Recovering from a computer virus attack

Abstract What a computer virus is and why it is dangerous is discussed. A method for detecting the presence of a computer virus and removing it from a computer system is presented. This method would be applicable even if the virus had caused the system to crash. The method is flexible enough to avoid conflict with a sites security policies.

Telehealth-based collaboration among primary and behavioral health care providers in rural areas

Rural primary health care providers are often isolated from specialists, such as behavioral health care providers. Telehealth technologies have the potential to overcome such isolation and support collaboration among providers that are not located in the same community.

Developing Telehealth in Rural America: The Wyoming Network for Telehealth

The Wyoming Network for Telehealth (WyNETTE) is a statewide network providing the infrastructure to support the delivery of health care to rural/frontier, underserved communities in the US state of Wyoming. The network connects 40 sites in the state through an ATM cloud to a collection point that connects the network to Internet 2. The primary focus of the network development is the delivery of behavioral health, although other applications are supported.

Practical User Identification for Masquerade Detection

Masquerade detection discovers suspicious activities in a computer system by creating userspsila normal profiles, then raising an alert when the audited behavior does not fit. We propose to apply the SVM algorithm to the concurrently employed patterns that have been weighted according to their frequencies in order to identify masquerading attacks. Our approach not only reduces the complexity of the system but also is more robust in controlling noisy instances of the audited behavior.

Support for dynamic binding in strongly typed languages

Dynamic binding is a facility usually found only in weakly typed languages. A strongly typed, block-structured language can, however, also support dynamic binding if its implementation is modified according to a set of widely applicable principles. The result of applying these principles to a strongly typed base language is a language that has much of the flexibility of weakly typed languages without requiring extensive run-time type checking.The primary principles in this general approach to adding dynamic binding to a language are providing separate compilation for the units of dynamic binding, establishing a link between a name in one unit and its implementation in another, and assuring that programs using dynamic binding remain consistent during their execution. There are different methods for implementing each of these principles; two languages to which dynamic binding has been added serve to illustrate some of the alternatives.