Subject: NA-NET distribution message

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 90 13:07:04 PDT

NA Digest   Sunday, April 29, 1990   Volume 90 : Issue 17

Today's Editor: Cleve Moler

Today's Topics:

     Report on Midwest NA Day
     Request for Interesting ODE Systems
     Teaching Laboratories
     Argonne Parallel Programming Class
     Postdoctoral Fellowship at LBL
     Offer to Share MATLAB Programs
     Scandinavian Workshop on Algorithm Theory

-------------------------------------------------------

From: Paul Saylor <[email-masked]>
Date: 29 Apr 90 18:23 +0200
Subject: Report on Midwest NA Day

Report on Midwest NA Day at the University of Illinois.

Midwest NA Day was held Friday, April 7 1990 on the University of
Illinois, Urbana-Champaign campus. The informal gathering of invited
speakers and conference attendees was organized to pay tribute to
Professor Bill Gear and took special note of his retirement from the
University of Illinois, where he has been head of the Computer Science
Department since 1985. 

The conference was originally proposed by Linda Petzold of Lawrence
Livermore National Labs and a former student of Bill Gear's.
The title -- Midwest NA Day -- was suggested by Gene Golub
of Stanford and the conference was organized by Steven Lee with
assistance from Mike Holst and Paul Saylor of the University of
Illinois. Approximately 70 people attended and 10 talks were given.

The speakers were:
Gene Golub (Stanford)
Roland Freund (RIACS)
Germund Dahlquist (Royal Inst. of Technology, Stockholm)
Linda Petzold (LLNL)
Bruce Suter (Air Force Institute of Technology)
Walter Gautschi (Purdue)
Dan Boley (University of Minnesota)
Shikang Li (Purdue)
Greg Ammar (University of Kentucky)
Biswa Datta (Northern Illinois University).

The talks covered topics in orthogonal polynomials, nonsymmetric
Lanczos iterations, ODEs, DAEs, neural networks, Lanczos algorithms
for controllability/observability, discrete least square
approximations, and the numerical solution of control problems. 

NA Day was held in the fourth floor Tower Room of the new Beckman
Institute, which gave a panoramic view, such as it is, of the twin
cities of Champaign and Urbana. (The crystal brilliance of a cool,
sunny day partly compensated for the inadequate scenery.) Although the
location was impressive, it was the speakers who made NA Day
exceptional. The purpose of the meeting was a farewell gesture of
friendship for Bill Gear, and in this it succeeded. It may have also
succeeded in promoting closer ties among the NA community in the
midwest (with special thanks to our visitors from outside the midwest.) 

------------------------------

From: Andy Froncioni <[email-masked]>
Date: 28 Apr 90 17:27:52 GMT
Subject: Request for Interesting ODE Systems

Does anyone out there have any interesting systems of ODE's
that they'd like solved?  If so, please send them to us.  We are
developing a tool to solve tough systems and would like to 
test the tool.

Thanks,

Andy Froncioni

		Andy Froncioni
                Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
		[email-masked]

------------------------------

From: John Holt <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 90 11:43:43 EST
Subject: Teaching Laboratories

                      TEACHING LABORATORIES

The purpose of this message is to solicit information from colleagues
concerning undergraduate computing laboratories. The University of 
Queensland Mathematics Department is planning a significant upgrade to 
our laboratory to cater for the large number of students taking courses 
with computing content. It is proposed that the laboratory will be used 
in courses including n.a., o.r., stats.,calculus, discrete maths, etc.

At present we have 24 graphics terminals to our UNIX system and 16
XT clones which can also emulate terminals to the UNIX system.

It is planned to install around 40 new stations. There is a requirement to 
run PC MATLAB for the n.a. people, MINITAB for the statisticians and
various other PC software products.  In addition, we have developed
an inhouse computer aided teaching package in C under UNIX which we 
wish to run. The hardware solution appears to us to be a network of
PC's (probably AT's) with a 386 file server (or 486), and in addition,
to network the PC's to our PYRAMID 9810 UNIX system. Using terminal
emulation, we can run the UNIX applications as required. This will
also give us access to NAG and other packages on the PYRAMID. 

Does anyone have any experience with such dual networking configurations? 
Which PC networking software are you happy with?

What sort of security do people use on their computing labs?

We would appreciate any advice that you can offer on the above or any
related issue.

John Holt
(na.holt)

------------------------------

From: David Levine <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 90 16:20:11 CDT
Subject: Argonne Parallel Programming Class

The Advanced Computing Research Facility (ACRF) at Argonne National Laboratory
is offering introductory courses on parallel computing to familiarize
potential users with the ACRF multiprocessors and parallel programming in
general.  The courses are limited to 22 people on a first come first serve
basis.

Topics to be covered include:

1) Parallelizing compilers.
2) The Monitor package for portable parallel programming.
3) Programming the Butterfly 2.
4) Programming the AMT DAP.
5) Programming the Connection Machine-2.
6) Introduction to the LAPACK project.

The format of the course is alternating lectures and hands-on work
with the parallel computers in the ACRF. Fortran will be emphasized as the
primary programming language.  Knowledge of Fortran and Unix will be assumed.
A portion of the third day is available for each attendee to work on their
own particular project.

The schedule of classes for the remainder of 1990 is:

June     13-15 1990
August   22-24 1990
October  17-19 1990
December  5-7  1990

Parallel computers currently in the ACRF are:

    4-processor Ardent Titan
    8-processor Alliant FX/8
   16-processor Intel iPSC-VX hypercube
   20-processor Encore Multimax
   24-processor Sequent Balance 21000
   32-processor Intel iPSC-1 hypercube
   45-processor Butterfly TC2000
 1024-processor Active Memory Technology DAP
16384-processor Thinking Machines CM-2

Those interested in the class should contact:

Teri Huml
Mathematics and Computer Science Division
Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne, IL  60439-4844
(312) 972-7163
[email-masked]

There will be a $25.00 registration fee per person for universities,
federal laboratories and government organizations and $100.00 for
commercial organizations.

------------------------------

From: Paul Concus <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 90 13:42:14 PDT
Subject: Postdoctoral Fellowship at LBL

                  Applications Invited for
      Hans Lewy Postdoctoral Fellowship in Mathematics
              at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory

     Applications are invited for the Hans Lewy postdoctoral
fellowship  in  the  Mathematics  Department of the Lawrence
Berkeley Laboratory. The  fellowship,  which  was  initiated
last year, is intended to enhance scientific research in the
U.S.A. by fostering a young Ph.D. to work in  areas  related
to the numerical solution of partial differential equations.
Of particular emphasis are those  areas  in  which  the  LBL
Mathematics  Department  is active, such as fluid mechanics,
polymer physics, interface methods, iterative  methods,  and
parallel  processing.  Concomitant interests in the use of
advanced-architecture computers are encouraged.

     Hans Lewy, who died in 1988, spent more  than  a  half-
century as part of the Berkeley mathematics community.  Much
of his work was in the area of  partial  differential  equa-
tions,  and  a  portion  of  it  forms the foundation of the
theory of modern difference schemes for solving evolutionary
partial differential equations numerically.

     Favorable  funding  may  permit  a  new  fellow  to  be
appointed  as  early  as  this  fall.  Interested applicants
should send a curriculum vitae and names of three references
to  Ms. V. Heatlie, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, University
of California, Berkeley, CA  94720.  Applications  for  this
fall  should arrive before May 23, 1990.  If the anticipated
early funding does not materialize, then  applications  sub-
mitted before May 23 will be held active, for applicants who
so desire, until selection early next year of a fellow whose
term  will begin in the fall of 1992.  The fellowship is for
one year, with possibility of renewal  for  a  second  year.
Support  is  provided  primarily  by  special funds from the
Department of Energy Applied Mathematical Sciences  Research
Subprogram,  for which there is a stipulation that the reci-
pient be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.

------------------------------

From: Howard Wilson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 90 18:26:47 CDT
Subject: Offer to Share MATLAB Programs

This note is  addressed to people  interested in using  high
level programming languages in physical applications.

Many people interested  in applied mathematics  already know
that MATLAB has  been gaining wide  use as a  wonderful tool
for  performing  matrix  computations  and complex analysis.
However, MATLAB has probably been less widely recognized  as
a powerful  programming medium  providing a  very attractive
alternative to  FORTRAN in  many engineering  and scientific
applications.  After  having  used  FORTRAN  as  my  primary
computing tool for many years, it is a real joy to work with
a program language like MATLAB which greatly reduces many of
the  pains  which  are  so  frustrating  in the debugging of
FORTRAN  code.  I  am  thinking  of the tedium of correcting
mistakes in long argument lists, and making sure the  typing
and sizes of data  arrays are correct. Since  MATLAB creates
intermediate data variables dynamically and treats variables
as  complex  numbers,  whenever  appropriate,  many  of  the
traditional 'stupid errors' which  waste a lot of  time when
we  have  to  work  with  older generation program languages
simply go away. Consequently,  we can get a  program working
much sooner and can proceed  to the primary task of  getting
numerical results from a problem of interest.

Much of my professional effort as a teacher of mechanics  is
devoted to instructing engineering students on how to  solve
physical  problems  by  use  of  computers.  Any new tool is
welcomed  which  can  accelerate  the  facility  with  which
numerical results are obtained. The appeal of not having  to
tolerate  debugging  frustrations  which  go with along with
programming in  widely used  languages like  Fortran, Basic,
Pascal or C is a welcome change. This is especially true  to
someone whose primary priority is to solve physical problems
as opposed  to embracing  computer programming  as a  way of
life.  Since  MATLAB  works  so  well  for me and many of my
colleagues, I  am eager  to see  its use  grow and  to share
instructional  applications  with  other  people  of similar
interest. For  this reason,  Chris Bischof  and I  (with the
kind help of  Jack Dongarra) have  been able to  establish a
MATLAB  program   collection  under   the  NETLIB   software
collection at ORNL. Any people who are not already  familiar
with the  MATLAB collection  might like  to drop  a note  to
Chris at Argonne ([email-masked]) and have your name  added
to the MATLAB user group list. Furthermore I would be  happy
to send any interested person an Email copy of the following
collection  of  MATLAB  programs  consisting  of  about 3000
source lines . Some of the programs are already included  in
NETLIB. Others are  simple instructional examples  which may
not  be  appropriate  for   inclusion  in  a  library.   The
collection is certainly not a research contribution, but  it
does  show  the  versatility  of  MATLAB  as  an   efficient
alternative to FORTRAN.

***  HWILSON Library Illustrating MATLAB Applications  ***

BARIMAPC     Longitudinal vibrations of a bar
BEMIMPAC     Transverse vibrations of a beam
BESTERP      Bessel interpolation and differentiation
BRACHIST     Brachistochrone problem by nonlinear programming
CABLEDYN     Nonlinear dynamic response of a cable
CHAOS        Routines to illustrate chaos
DESTAB       Stability regions for Runge-Kutta methods
DVDTP        Interpolation by divided differences
ELIPS        Rational function approximation for ellipse mapping
FHRSDE       Forced harmonic response in structural dynamics
FOUPLA       Fourier series expansion for general functions
GAUSSQ       Routines for Gauss integrations
GJEROU       Gauss-Jordan reduction with rounding
NELVIB       Nelder-Mead function fit to vibration data
PENFORC      ODE78 integrator for differential equations
POLHEDR      Inertial properties of polyhedra
RECTOR       Ractangle torsional analysis by point matching
SLAPERR      Solution of Laplace's equation in a rectangle
SPACCURV     Interpolation of data points on a space curve
SQUARMAP     Conformal mapping of a circle onto a square

Any opportunity to confer with other kindred spirits who like
MATLAB would be welcomed by me and other users at the University
of Alabama.

Howard Wilson
Engineering Mechanics Department
University of Alabama
Box 870278
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0278
Telephone (205 348-1617)

------------------------------

From: Bengt Aspvall <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Apr 90 16:18:28 +0200
Subject: Scandinavian Workshop on Algorithm Theory

                      CONFERENCE INFORMATION

    The Second Scandinavian Workshop on Algorithm Theory  (SWAT 90)
                 Bergen, Norway, July 11-14, 1990

The program committee has selected 34 papers for presentation. In addition,
there will be invited lectures by Juris Hartmanis, Robert E. Tarjan, and 
David S. Johnson.

Springer-Verlag will publish the proceedings. 
BIT will devote a special issue to papers from SWAT 90. 

To obtain the complete program and registration forms, please contact

Bengt Aspvall, 
Department of Informatics, University of Bergen,
Thormohlensgate 55, N-5008 Bergen, Norway 
Phone:  47-5-544156
Fax:    47-5-544199
Email:  [email-masked]

------------------------------

End of NA Digest
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