NA Digest Sunday, September 4, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 35

Today's Editor: Cleve Moler

Today's Topics:

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From: Bob Caviness <bcavines@note.nsf.gov>
Date: Sun, 28 Aug 88 12:16:25 -0400
Subject: Thanks from Caviness

August 31 will be my last day at NSF as the Program Director for Numeric
and Symbolic Computation. Many thanks to all of you who have helped me
during the past year by providing reviews and advice.

Effective September 12, Kamal Abdali will be the new Program Director.

Bob Caviness


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From: Zhenqin Li <zqli@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu>
Date: 30 Aug 88 04:10:52 GMT
Subject: Relaxation Time of Markov Process

I would appreciate if anybody could inform me of some references
on the analysis of relaxation times of Markov stochastic processes.
The Markov processes I have in mind are of high dimensional state space.
The relaxation time is related to the 2nd largest eigenvalue of the
(nearly diagonal) transition matrix, which is hard to obtain by a
brute-force solution of the (high-degree) characteristic equations.

Zhenqin Li
Cornell Theory Center
Cornell University, Ithaca NY


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From: Henry Greenside <hsg@cs.duke.edu>
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 88 15:58:53 EDT
Subject: Block-tridiagonal Toeplitz Matrices

Toeplitz matrices (see Gollub and Van Loan) can be solved in
order N^2 operations. Is there a known generalization to
block tridiagonal matrices, each of which is a Toeplitz
matrix? That is, is there an order K N^2 algorithm where K is
the number of blocks and N is the size of each block?

This problem arises when solving Poisson equations in toroidal
domains (two periodic directions, one nonperiodic direction).

Henry Greenside

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From: Zahari Zlatev <zlatev%uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu%uxc.cso.uiuc.edu@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 88 17:08:44 CDT
Subject: Change of Address for Zlatev

I got a visiting position at the Center for Supercomputing at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. From August 1988 to
August 1989 my address will be:

Zahari Zlatev
Center for Supercomputing Research and Development
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
305 Talbot Laboratory
104 South Wright Street
Urbana 61801-2932, USA

My address for e-mail is: zlatev@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu
Of course, messages sent to na.zlatev will also reach me.


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From: W. J. Cody <cody%antares@anl-mcs.arpa>
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 88 13:44:23 CDT
Subject: New Version of MACHAR Available

New version of MACHAR available

The environmental enquiry program MACHAR, originally published
in Fortran in Cody and Waite, Software Manual for the Elementary
Functions, Prentice-Hall, 1980, has been modified to function
correctly with IEEE arithmetic. The new Fortran 77 version has
run succesfully on the following machines: AD 100, Alliant FX/8,
BBN Butterfly, CRAY 1 and CRAY X-MP (under the CIVIC compiler),
CYBER 180/855 (under NOS, single-precision only), DAP-510-8,
ELXSI 6400, Encore Multimax, IBM 3033, IBM PC, Intel iPSC
hypercube, Macintosh II, Sequent Balance, Sun 3/60, and VAX
11/780. The program is known to malfunction on CRAYs with the
CFT compiler, and on all CYBER systems except the 180/855 under
NOS and in single precision. Full documentation of the Fortran
77 version is scheduled to appear in the December issue of TOMS
in the article "MACHAR: A Subroutine to Dynamically Determine
Machine Parameters"; Fortran source will be available from CALGO.

The program has also been translated into C and run on an Encore
Multimax, an IBM PC, a Sequent Balance, a Sun 3/60, a VAX 11/780,
and (in appropriately revised form) on a Connection Machine. Both
Fortran and C source are now available over ARPAnet in the "core"
directory of netlib. The Fortran version also replaces the older
versions in the "elefunt" and "specfun" directories of netlib.

W. J. Cody*

Mathematics and Computer Science Division
Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne, Illinois 60439-4801


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From: Greg Nielson <nielson%asuvax.asu.edu@RELAY.CS.NET>
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 88 15:07:04 MST
Subject: IEEE Computer Special Issue on Visualization

Call for Papers and Referees
Special Issue of Computer Magazine on
Visualization in Scientific Computing

The August 1989 issue of Computer magazine will be devoted to a
wide range of topics in Visualization in Scientific Computing.
Manuscripts that are either tutorial, survey, descriptive, case-study,
applications-oriented or pedagogic in nature are immediately sought
in the following areas:

*Hardware strategies for scientific visualization; parallel
architectures, supercomputing, workstations and networks

*User interfaces, paradigms and interactive techniques for
visualization of 3D (and higher dimensional) models

*Scientific data analysis, manipulation, representation and display
techniques; particularly volume visualization and methods for large
multivariate data sets

*Dissemination of the results of interactive systems and animated
images; standards; televisualization and networks

*Application of visualization techniques to science and engineering
problems and data

INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBMITTING MANUSCRIPTS

Manuscripts should be no more than 32 typewritten, double-spaced
pages in length including all figures and references. No more than 12
references should be cited. Papers must not have been previously
published or currently submitted for publication elsewhere.
Manuscripts should have a title page that includes the title of the
paper, full name(s) and affiliation(s) of it author(s), complete
physical and electronic adress(es), telephone number(s), a 300-word
abstract, and a list of keywords that identify the central issues
of the manuscript's contents.


DEADLINES

*300-word abstract of the manuscript is due as soon as possible.
*Eight (8) copies of the full manuscript are due by December 1, 1988.
*Notification of acceptance is March 1, 1989.
*Final version of the manuscript is due not later than May 1, 1989.

SEND SUBMISSIONS AND QUESTIONS TO GUEST EDITOR

Gregory M. Nielson
Computer Science Department
Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona 85287-5406
(602) 965-2785, E-MAIL: nielson@enuxva.asu.edu

REFEREES

If you are willing to review papers, please send a note with your
technical interests to Greg Nielson or Professor Bruce Shiver,
Editor-in-Chief of Computer, Department of Decision Sciences, University of
Hawaii, 2404 Maile Way, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822; E-MAIL:
shriver@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu


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From: Hans Schneider <hs@math.wisc.edu>
Date: Sat, 3 Sep 88 13:50:02 cdt
Subject: LAA Special Issue on Linear Programming

LAA ANNOUNCEMENT

Special Issue on Interior Point Methods
for Linear Programming


Contributions are invited for a special issue of Linear Algebra and Its
Applications which will be devoted to interior point methods for linear
programming.

Papers in the general area are welcome; however, we encourage work which
contains both a computational and linear algebraic component. One of our
goals is to identify and focus attention on those areas of interior point
methods where the computational aspects of linear algebra play an important
role. In accordance with this objective thorough computational experimental
works which demonstrate a significant aspect of a particular algorithmic
formulation or contain enlightening comparative research will also be
considered.

Papers should meet the usual publication standards of LAA and will be
refereed. The deadline for submission is August, 1989 with expected
publication in the summer or fall of 1990. Papers may be sent to any
of the special editors of the issue:

Dr. David Gay
AT&T Bell Labs
600 Mountain View
Murray Hil, New Jersey 07974

Professor Masakazu Kojima
Department of Information Services
Oh-Okayama, Meguro-ku
Tokyo 152, JAPAN

Professor Richard Tapia
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Rice University
P.O. Box 1982
Houston, Texas 77251-1892

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From: Gabriel Silberman <Gabriel.Silberman@K.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 88 16:39:11 EDT
Subject: ISCA '89 Workshops

COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE WORKSHOPS:
CALL for PROPOSALS

The 16th Annual International Symposium on
COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE
(ISCA '89)
Jerusalem/Eilat, Israel
May 1989, ISRAEL

sponsored by
ACM SIGARCH

(The Association for Computing Machinery, Special Interest Group on Computer
Architecture)

Beginning in 1989, the ACM-SIGARCH/IEEE-CS International Symposium on Com-
puter Architecture is pleased to offer s.sport for a number of workshops
dealing with important issues in the field of Computer Architecture. S.sport
consists of providing a meeting space for the workshop, overhead projectors,
coffee and donuts, publishing the record, and publicity arrangements. Some
financial s.sport for travel may be possible, if proposals are promptly sub-
mitted for consideration.

Each workshop is requested to produce a record of the workshop events, dis-
cussions, and presentations. These will later be published in a special
issue of the ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture Newsletter (CAN).

Only a limited number of workshops can be accommodated. To assist in the
organization of these workshops, the ISCA Organizing Committee is soliciting
proposals for workshops. Proposals should include the title of the workshop,
a brief description of the focus, the organization and format of the
workshop, the duration (1, 2, or 3 days), and a proposed list of invitees.
Proposals should be submitted as soon as possible, and in no case later than
November 11, 1988, to:

Professor Trevor Mudge
1101 Beal Ave.
The University of Michigan
EE/CS Department
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2120

tnm@crim.eecs.umich.edu
(313) 764-0203


A selection committee will evaluate all proposals. Notifications of accep-
tance will occur in a timely manner.

The workshops will be held in Eilat, May 24 to 26 (for 1, 2, or 3 days),
immediately prior to the Symposium (May 28 to June 1). Local sightseeing and
scuba-diving in Eilat, Israel's resort on the Red Sea coast, and transporta-
tion to Jerusalem at the end of the workshops, including touring and a visit
to the Dead Sea, will be available as part of the workshop package.


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End of NA Digest

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