mwang@watmath.UUCP (mwang) (02/07/84)
_D_E_P_A_R_T_M_E_N_T _O_F _C_O_M_P_U_T_E_R _S_C_I_E_N_C_E _U_N_I_V_E_R_S_I_T_Y _O_F _W_A_T_E_R_L_O_O _S_E_M_I_N_A_R _A_C_T_I_V_I_T_I_E_S _S_Y_M_B_O_L_I_C _C_O_M_P_U_T_A_T_I_O_N _S_E_M_I_N_A_R - Thursday, February 16, 1984. Dr. J.S. Devitt of The University of Lethbridge will speak on ``SIS - A Scientific Information Management System.'' TIME: 3:30 PM ROOM: MC 6091A ABSTRACT A Number of information systems exit which deal with scientific information. Typically, such systems deal only with numeric information in the form of tables or graphs. Scientific formulas, if dealt with at all, are treated as text. This permits storage and retrieval of symbolic data but no interactive manipulation. In the course of problem solving, a researcher or en- gineer must combine these activities. Information relevant to his problem must be retrieved from a hand- book, textbook or data base. This information must then be manipulated or combined with other information, often using numeric or symbolic techniques. This pro- cess may be iterated several times. The resulting data might in turn be used as input parameters to various programs or subroutines. Scientific Information System (SIS) is a software sys- tem which combines the facilities of data base manage- ment systems with with those of symbolic computation. The user interface is similar to that of Query by Exam- ple and may also be used to invoke subroutines from li- braries interactively. This talk will describe the data model being used, and in particular how the relational data base model has been modified to accommodate symbolic formulae. A pro- totype which relies heavily on the symbolic language Maple, for both the symbolic manipulation and data base operations, will also be described. February 7, 1984 - 2 - February 7, 1984