[comp.lang.prolog] PROLOG Digest V5 #50

PROLOG-REQUEST@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU (Chuck Restivo, The Moderator) (07/29/87)

PROLOG Digest           Wednesday, 29 Jul 1987     Volume 5 : Issue 50

Today's Topics:
                Implementation - History & Variables,
                 Announcement - EDBT Call for Papers
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 28 Jul 87 09:44:57 PDT
From: Fernando Pereira <pereira@stinson.ai.sri.com>
Subject: C-Prolog questions

The notation [X,..L] as an alternative to [X|L] is accepted by C-Prolog
for backwards compatibility with some old DEC-10 Prolog programs. The
,.. notation was originally used in DEC-10 Prolog to cope with the reduced
character set of upper-case only terminals (yes, there were such terminals
around back in 1975/76 when Dave Warren started the DEC-10 Prolog compiler
at Edinburgh).

Jeff Klein's problem with variables accross multiple calls to read/1
can be solved in many different ways. The nature of a Prolog variable
is to be unique to a particular term (eg. a clause) read by read/1,
so his problem is only to be expected (it has nothing to do with
the internal representations of variables), which in fact are ephemeral
(_33 is an identifier constructed on the fly by write/1 and has no
persistence beyond a single call to write/1 -- or even less in Prologs
with GC!). The simplest way to solve the problem is to use read/2
in Prolog systems that have it (eg. C-Prolog 1.5.edai), which returns
as its 2nd argument an association list between variable names
(atoms) and variables. For example

        ?- read(Term, Vars).
        |: [A, B, C].
        Term = [_11, _22, _33]
        Vars = ['A'=_11, 'B'=_22, 'C'=_33]

If your Prolog does not provide this facility, you can get it from the
public domain reader due to Richard O'Keefe. When in doubt, look in
the library...

-- Fernando Pereira

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

Date: Fri 24 Jul 87 10:41:17-PDT
From: Jeffrey D. Ullman <ULLMAN@score.stanford.edu>
Subject: EDBT call for papers

                           Call for Papers
                           ===============

                       International Conference
                    Extending Data Base Technology

                          March 14-18, 1988
                    Cini Foundation, Venice, Italy

Organized by:           Sponsored by:           In Cooperation with:
        IASI-CNR                AICA                    IEEE
        INRIA                   GI                      ACM
        Pol. di Milano          AFCET
        Univ. Frankfurt         BCS


The Conference

        EDBT 88 will be a forum for presentation of new results in
research, development, and applications of database technology.  The
conference will favour the sharing of information between researchers
and practitioners and outline the future developments of database
systems and applications.

        Tutorials will be offered in the first two days of the
Conference, and keynote speakers will be invited.  The Conference and
Tutorials will be held at the Cini Foundation on S. Giorgio Island in
Venice.  Venice will offer an exciting environment for social
activities.


Topics of Interest

        The EDBT 88 Conference will accept scientific and technical
papers on all areas of database development, but will primarily focus
on extensions of database technology in the following directions:

        * Deductive databases and knowledge bases
        * Heterogeneous and multimedia databases
        * Object-oriented database systems and models
        * Environments for database design and programming
        * New applications of databases: engineering, office automation,
          and software administration
        * Distributed databases and database machines
        * Performance issues and implementation techniques

Information for Authors

        Authors are requested to submit five copies (in English) of a
double-spaced manuscript up to 5000 words by October 10, 1987 to:

                Prof. Joachim W. Schmidt
                Universitat Frankfurt
                Fachbereich Informatik
                Dantestrasse 9
                D 6000 Frankfurt 1
                West Germany
                tel.(49)-69-7988101

Short papers (up to 1000 words) describing ongoing projects are also
solicited; selected short papers will be included in the Proceedings
and be the basis of special discussion sections.

        The preprints of the Proceedings will be distributed among the
Conference participants.  The final version of the Conference
Proceedings will be edited and will be published by a major publishing
house.

                           Important Dates

October 10, 1987        submission deadline (regular papers and short papers)

December 15, 1987       acceptance notification

February 1, 1988        camera-ready copies due


                       Conference Organization

Conference Chairperson  Stefano Ceri
                        (Universita di Modena and Politecnico di Milano)

Program Committee Chairperson
                        Joachim W. Schmidt
                        (Universitat Frankfurt)

Program Committee Members
        S. Alagic (Jugoslavia)                  H.Kangassalo (Finland)
        A.Albano (Italy)                        M.Missikof (Italy)
        P.Apers (Netherlands)                   J.Mylopoulos (Canada)
        M.Atkinson (G.Britain)                  E.Neuhold (F.R.Germany)
        F.Bancilhon (France)                    J.M.Nicolas (F.R.Germany)
        R.Bayer (F.R.Germany)                   A.Pirotte (Belgium)
        C.Beeri (Israel)                        A.Reuter (F.R.Germany)
        G.Bracchi (Italy)                       G.Schlageter (F.R.Germany)
        M.L.Brodie (USA)                        A.Sernadas (Portugal)
        J.Bubenko (Sweden)                      A.Solvberg (Norway)
        S.Ceri (Italy)                          N.Spyratos (France)
        Q.Chen (China)                          P.Stocker (G.Britain)
        P.Dadam (F.R.Germany)                   K.Subieta (Poland)
        R.Demolombe (France)                    B.Thalheim (D.R.Germany)
        D.J.DeWitt (USA)                        D.C.Tsichritzis (Switzerland)
        A.Furtado (Brasil)                      Y.Vassiliou (Greece)
        G.Gardarin (France)                     G.Wiederhold (USA)
        G.Gottlob (Austria)                     H.Williams (G.Britain)
        L.A.Kalinichenko (USSR)                 C.Zaniolo (USA)
        Y.Kambayashi (Japan)                    C.A.Zehnder (Switzerland)

Us Coordinator          C. Zaniolo
                        (MCC USA)

Notes:  For further organization information on EDBT 88 refer to:

                Michele Missikoff
                IASI-CNR
                Viale Manzoni 30
                00185 ROMA
                Italy
                tel. (39)-6-770031

        Conference Secretariat:

                CRAI
                Via Tevere 15
                00198 ROMA
                Italy
                tel. (39)-6-852500

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

End of PROLOG Digest
********************