krj@na.toronto.edu (Ken Jackson) (05/01/89)
NA Digest Sunday, April 30, 1989 Volume 89 : Issue 17 Today's Editor: Cleve Moler Today's Topics: London Conference on Ordinary Differential Equations Changes and Additions to NA List Numerical C Extensions Group Report 4th Copper Mountain Multigrid Conf. Proceedings Multigrid Use Survey ------------------------------------------------------- From: Iain Duff <duff@antares.mcs.anl.gov> Date: Mon, 24 Apr 89 15:42:05 CDT Subject: London Conference on Ordinary Differential Equations IMA Conference on Ordinary Differential Equations I attach the following message from Catherine Richards of the IMA concerning the forthcoming conference on ordinary differential equations to be held at Imperial College London from July 3rd to 7th, 1989. It should be viewed partly as a response to two recent messages from Hans Stetter concerning the fees for the meeting. I should also draw attention to the fact that there is no external funding for this conference, it lasts a whole week, and lunches are included. I personally am not involved in this meeting but feel it important that readers of the digest are acquainted with all facts before passing judgement. I have been involved in many other meetings which sometimes have included lunches in the registration fee and sometimes have not. There is assuredly no hard and fast rule as to which is better. It is difficult to run a conference on a tight schedule if lunches are not provided and, for people wishing them, the costs of eating out in London would normally be much higher than the cost charged in the fees. Some questions have also been raised concerning the exact nature of the residential accommodation and the alternatives in the Imperial College region. Further information on this will appear shortly in a subsequent na-net message. Iain Duff Harwell na.duff@na-net.stanford.edu ******************************* IMA CONFERENCE ON COMPUTATIONAL ORDINARY DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS IMPERIAL COLLEGE, LONDON 3 - 7 JULY 1989 In view of some adverse comments that have been made about the fees charged for this conference some facts ought to be understood. 1 The Institute simply aims to ensure that fees received for any conference shall cover the direct costs. 2 For the conference in question the costs are very heavy. They fall under 3 headings: a) charges made by Imperial College for lecture theatres and other facilities; b) accommodation and meals for invited and highlighted speakers, and organising committees; c) travel costs of invited speakers. The total of these costs is such that the fee charged to members, whose membership subscriptions make a contribution to the Institute's overhead conference expenses, are intended simply to be the appropriate level to cover direct costs. The additional charge made to non-members is a contribution towards the overheads. Overall the Institute does not make any profit on conferences. 3 Recently a special effort has been made to reduce the commitment for speakers' travel expenses, with some success. As a result the fees can be reduced to a level which is the very minimum at which the Institute can hope to avoid having to subsidise the conference. The new conference fees (in pounds) are as follows: MEMBERS NON-MEMBERS Conference fee 115 145 Bona fide postgraduate 85 100 student The residential fee and other charges are unchanged. Catherine Richards Secretary and Registrar Institute of Mathematics and its Applications ------------------------------ From: Gene Golub <golub@na-net.stanford.edu> Date: Tue, 25 Apr 1989 23:45:32 PDT Subject: Changes and Additions to NA List CHANGES bailey,david,'dbailey@ew11.nas.nasa.gov' blakey,peter,'blakey%cad@mcc.com' carroll,john,'mcvax!vax1.nihed.ie!carrollj@uunet.uu.net' charron,richard,'rcharron@munucs.mun.ca' deboor,carl,'deboor@stolp.cs.wisc.edu' durst,mark,'durst@diego.llnl.gov' linton,tom,'linton%cad@mcc.com' milaszewicz,juanpedro,'milas@mate.edu.ar' paige,chris,'chrisp@musocs.cs.mcgill.ca' plemmons,bob,'plemmons@matple.ncsu.edu' rugbjerg,morten,'dhimnr%dkdhi12.bitnet@forsythe.stanford.edu' saltzman,jeffrey,'jss@lll-crg.llnl.gov' trummer,manfred,'trummer@cs.sfu.ca' yeun,anthony,'#yeun14@ccu.umanitoba.ca' NEW ADDITIONS einfeldt,bernd,uk,'ca015r@cdvc.cranfield.ac.uk' celarier,edward,princeton,'celarier@chemvax.princeton.edu' ferguson,helaman,super,'helamanf@super.org' gustafsson,kjell,sweden,'kjell@control.lth.se' hazlewood,carol,usabitnet,'cs_hazle%swtexas.bitnet@forsythe.stanford.edu' hegland,markus,switzerland,'hegland@ips.ethz.ch' hoffman,alan,ibm,'hoffa%yktvmv.bitnet@forsythe.stanford.edu' lawson,charles,nasa,'charles_lawson@jems.jpl.nasa.gov' morgan,ronald,usabitnet,'mathrbm%umcvmb.bitnet@forsythe.stanford.edu' page,michael,australia,'apm388p@monu1.cc.monash.oz.au' patel,rajni,canada,'rajni@deervax.concordia.ca' swarztrauber,paul,riacs,'pauls@sun248.nas.nasa.gov' thatcher,ron,uk,'rwthar@prime-a.central-services.umist.ac.uk' thomas,ruth,uk,'mcbmsrm@cms.manchester-computing-centre.ac.uk' wallace,stein,norway,'sww%hmh@gran.ii.uib.no' womble,david,sandia,'dewombl@sandia.gov' ------------------------------ From: Rex Jaeschk <eaussie!rex@uunet.uu.net> Date: 25 Apr 89 21:59:09 GMT Subject: Numerical C Extensions Group Report A few weeks ago an announcement was posted re the formation of NCEG. Here's a progress status report. Numerical C Extensions Group (NCEG) Status Report ================================================= The meeting proposed for May 10-11 at Cray Research is definitely on. The response to my paper mailing and postings to various newsfeeds was encouraging with some 20+ people expressing their intent to be at that meeting. Another 10-20 people expressed support and asked to be kept informed of the group's progress. As of April 25, the attendee list (in alpha order of company) is as follows: Analog Devices - Kevin Leary Apple - Jim Thomas Argonne Labs - Cody BRL (US Army) - Mike Muuss CDC - Computer X - Convex - Cray - Tom MacDonald + one or more Cray customers DEC - Randy Meyers HP - Walter Murray IBM - Larry Breed Information and Graphic Systems - Mike Branigan Intermetrics - P.J. Plauger Journal of C Language Translation - Rex Jaeschke (convener) MasPar Computer Corporation - Peter Christy Polaroid Microelectronics - William Vetterling (coauthor of Numerical Recipes [in C]) Pyramid - Wendy Thrash Stellar - Peter Darnell Sun - Supercomputers - either Chuck Rasbold or Kelly O'hair Unisys - Don Bixler UofMN - Prof. Patrick Powell AT&T (not confirmed) LLNL (not confirmed) Plum Hall - Tom Plum (not confirmed) Those wanting to be kept informed include: Solbourne, TI, and the Free Software Foundation. Proposed Meeting Agenda (Please bring a hard-copy of this to the meeting if you plan to attend) Item 2 will set the tone for the rest of the technical agenda. The topics suggested in sessions 4-8 are simply my educated guesses at the hottest issues. We will modify the agenda as agreed to at the meeting. Tom MacDonald has requested time to present his latest revision for adding complex arithmetic and this has been accommodated on the second day. Tom will have copies at the meeting. If you wish to distribute technical proposals please bring at least 25 copies to the meeting. Call me before the meeting if you think you'll need agenda time for specific issues. Wednesday May 10 9:00 -- 10:30 Session 1 1. Opening activities 1.1 Welcome 1.2 Goals and purpose of the meeting 1.3 Host facilities 1.4 Introduction of participants 1.5 Procedures for this meeting 2. Discussion of Agenda (this meeting and long-term) Prioritize technical issues as: Now, later, sometime, too hard. Identify primary and alternate focal point person for each main issue. Identify related standards and prior art. 10:30 -- 10:45 Morning break 10:45 -- 12:15 Session 2 3. Discussion of Agenda (continued) 12:15 -- 2:15 LUNCH 2:15 -- 3:45 Session 3 4. IEEE Issues 4:00 -- 5:30 Session 4 5. Vector/Parallel Issues 6. Living with Fortran - calling, shared libraries, etc. Thursday May 11 9:00 -- 10:30 Session 5 7. A proposal to add complex arithmetic to C -- Tom MacDonald (Cray) 10:45 -- 12:15 Session 6 8. General library issues 11:15 -- 12:15 9. Administration 9.1 Summary of decisions reached 9.2 Action items committed to 9.3 Future of NCEG as a group and/or long-term affiliation 9.4 Future meeting schedule - date, location, host 9.5 Mailings and submission procedures 9.6 Other business 9.7 Adjournment Host for NCEG Meeting #2 Being optimistic I have tentatively arranged for the next NCEG meeting to be held in conjunction with ANSI C X3J11 in Salt Lake City, Utah. X3J11 meets on September 21-22 with NCEG on September 19-20 for one and a half or two days. This eliminates the need for separate travel expenses for those planning to attend both meetings. DEC's user group DECUS is hosting that X3J11 meeting and since NCEG is not currently affiliated with a recognized standards body, DECUS will not host our meeting as well. The expected cost of hosting NCEG for two days is about $900. This includes the meeting room, morning and afternoon catering for 25 people, and A/V equipment. Right now, the meeting room reservation is under my name, however, I can assure you I will not be paying for it - I'm only a 1-man operation and my contributions are taking other forms. I need to exercise my option within 1-2 weeks after the May 10-11 meeting to guarantee the facility. Please check with your management to see if you can offer to underwrite all or part of this cost. I can arrange to split it two (or perhaps even three) ways. I would very much like a commitment by the end of the May meeting. Lack of formal affiliation problems At least one major vendor has expressed concern about the lack of a formal standards affiliation. It seems their legal department forbids employees from participating in any forum that could conceivably be construed as an attempt by one group of companies to do something proprietary. Issues of antitrust and monopolies raise their heads. Now while my intent was to make NCEG a truly public forum this problem must be faced, and soon, since companies with such policies otherwise will not be providing input we need. Their participation can only allow us to do a better job. Becoming affiliated is not a bad idea. Certainly, it's much easier to adopt existing voting rules, etc., than it is to invent our own. Also, if we can eventually publish a Technical Bulletin for the ANSI C Standard (for example) specifying numerical extensions, it will carry more weight with the industry. Before coming to the meeting find out what your company's policy is in this regard. I look forward to meeting you in beautiful Mendota Heights, MN in May. Rex Jaeschke, Convener - April 25, 1989 Rex Jaeschke | C Users Journal | Journal of C Language Translation (703) 860-0091 | DEC PROFESSIONAL |1810 Michael Faraday Drive, Suite 101 uunet!aussie!rex | Programmers Journal | Reston, Virginia 22090, USA ------------------------------ From: Steve McCormick <smccormi@copper.Colorado.EDU> Date: Sun, 30 Apr 89 08:05:26 mdt Subject: 4th Copper Mountain Multigrid Conf. Proceedings Anyone interested in obtaining the preliminary proceedings of the Fourth Copper Mountain Conference on Multigrid Methods can do so by sending a check for $25 (payable to the University of Colorado at Denver) to: Ms. Debbie Beltz Computational Math Group, Box 170 CU-Denver 1200 Larimer Street Denver, CO 80204 ------------------------------ From: Steve McCormick <smccormi@copper.Colorado.EDU> Date: Sun, 30 Apr 89 08:06:09 mdt Subject: Multigrid Use Survey We are currently conducting an informal survey on the use of multigrid or multilevel methods for solving practical problems. We mean this loosely to include any situation where these methods have been used as important components in the solution of problems of interest in physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, economics, engineering,... We are especially interested in production application codes. Any information you could supply us with in this direction would be greatly appreciated. A few sentences with perhaps a reference or contact would be most helpful. Please e-mail your comments to: stevem@boulder.colorado.edu or smccormi@copper.colorado.edu or na.mccormick@na-net.stanford.edu If our survay is successful, we'll publish the results in the MG Newsletter with copies sent to the respondents. (Free Newsletter subscriptions can be obtained by sending us your regular mail address.) ------------------------------ End of NA Digest ************************** ------- Reposted by -- Kenneth R. Jackson, krj@na.toronto.edu (on Internet, CSNet, Computer Science Dept., ARPAnet, BITNET) University of Toronto, krj@na.utoronto.ca (CDNnet and other Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4 X.400 nets (Europe)) (Phone: 416-978-7075) ...!{uunet,pyramid,watmath,ubc-cs}!utai!krj