Simula Research Laboratory (eBook)

Aslak Tveito is managing director of the Simula group, and has worked at Simula Research Laboratory since the company was established in 2001. Tveito is professor in scientific computing at the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo. Prior to his appointment as managing director, Tveito served as research director for the scientific computing department at Simula. In addition to his work with the University of Oslo, Tveito has served as chief scientist at SINTEF Applied Mathematics.Are Magnus Bruaset combines the position as Assistant Director of the Simula School of Research and Innovation AS with the leadership of Simula's industrial collaboration in computational geosciences. Bruaset is professor in scientific computing at the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo. Before he joined Simula, Bruaset served as senior research scientist at SINTEF Applied Mathematics, and as entrepreneur and vice president of R&D in the research-based company Numerical Objects AS.Olav Lysne is director of basic research, and has worked at Simula since the establishment in 2001. During his tenure with Simula, Lysne has also served as head of the networks and distributed systems department and as research scientist. Lysne is professor in communication systems at the Department of Informatics at the University of Oslo where he has served in several capacities, including as founder and leader of a group in communication systems.

Preface 5
Contents 7
Part I The Scene 11
What Would you do if you Suddenly got an Annual Grant of About Ten Million Dollars? 12
By Thinking Constantly About It 16
The Simula Culture --- How we do Research, Education and Innovation 25
Impressed with Targeted Research Strategy 37
The Hamming Experience 41
Richard Hamming --- You and Your Research 44
Simula Research Laboratory --- A Different Research Institution 68
IT Fornebu and the Political Battle that led to the Creation of Simula 84
The Right Step at the Right Time 96
A Brief History of Norwegian Science and Research Policy 100
Simula --- The Language 120
Part II Basic Research 125
Introduction to Basic Research 127
Networks and Distributed Systems --- Why, What, How and What's Next 129
Scalable Interconnection Networks 135
Introduction 137
Topology-Agnostic Routing 142
Fault Tolerance 148
Dynamic Reconfiguration 155
Technology Transfer and Collaboration 159
Future Outlook 161
Final Remarks and Conclusions 163
References 164
Providing Resilience in Communications Networks 169
Introduction 171
Fast Recovery from Component Failures 175
Routing Homeostasis 177
Scalability of BGP Interdomain Routing 181
Packet Forwarding in Wireless Sensor Networks 184
QoS in OFDM Wireless Networks 187
Future Perspectives 189
References 191
From Gilgamesh to Star Wars 194
RELAY --- On the Performance and Resource Utilisation of Time-Dependent Large-Scale Distributed Systems 204
Introduction 206
Simula as a Research Accelerator: RELAY's History 207
Scenario: Interactive, Time-Dependent Applications 210
Conclusion and Future Perspectives 235
References 238
Scientific Computing --- Why, What, How and What's Next 241
References 251
Catching the Beat 253
Computer Simulations of the Heart 263
Mathematical Model 265
Numerical Methods 268
Simulations 273
Conclusion and Perspectives 278
References 279
A Message from the Heart 281
Can ECG Recordings and Mathematics tell the Condition of Your Heart? 291
Introduction 293
Mathematical Model 297
Level Set Approach 300
Recovering ST Shifts 302
Validation 307
Numerical Treatment of Optimality Systems 311
Future Perspectives 317
References 318
Past and Future Perspectives on Scientific Software 324
Introduction 326
A Short History of Programming Languages 327
Fortran 327
C 329
C++ 330
MATLAB 333
Python 333
A Short History of Scientific Programming Styles 334
Problems With Static Typing 334
Object-Oriented Programming 335
Templates and Generic Programming 336
Python Programming Glues Together Old and New Techniques 337
General Mathematics and Special Physics 337
Heterogeneous Software Environments 338
Diffpack 339
Current and Future Trends 342
Parallel Computing 342
Hardware Considerations 343
Software Development 343
Performance Issues 346
Automation and Code Generation 347
Automation 347
Efficiency vs. Generality 348
Code Generation 349
FEniCS and the Automation of CMM 351
History 351
The Role of Simula 352
Design 352
Software Map 354
Examples 355
Solving Poisson's Equation 356
Solving the Navier-Stokes Equations 358
Conclusions 359
References 361
Software Engineering --- Why, What, How and What's Next 366
References 371
A Matter of Judgement 372
Software Development Effort Estimation --- Demystifying and Improving Expert Estimation 383
Motivation 385
Research Results 389
Transfer to and Impact on the Software Industry 399
Conclusions and Future Work 400
References 401
Faulty Until Proved Correct 406
Software Verification --- A Scalable, Model-Driven, Empirically Grounded Approach 416
Introduction 418
Background 418
Requirements for Model-based Verification 425
Moving Forward 426
Software Verification Research at Simula 434
Conclusions 439
References 439
The industry is our lab --- Organisation and Conduct of Empirical Studies in Software Engineering at Simula 444
Introduction 446
Forms of Collaboration With Industry 447
Incentives 448
Experiment Infrastructures 450
Increased Realism in Experiments 452
Increased Control in Case Studies 456
Conclusions 457
References 457
A Series of Controlled Experiments on Software Maintenance 460
Introduction 462
The Experiments 463
Experiments on UML 470
Experiment on Design Patterns 471
Experiment on Pair Programming 472
Contributions 473
Research Methodological Contributions 476
Conclusions 477
References 477
Part III Research Education 481
Educating Researchers --- a Virtue of Necessity 483
References 492
Thinking Outside the Box 494
A Little Competition and a Lot of Cooperation 498
Are you Planning to Take a PhD? 501
An Extraordinary Investment 516
Simula can do Much Better! 520
Achieving Relevance 524
Part IV Research Applications 528
Bridging the Gap Between Industry and Research 530
Making the Invisible Visible 538
Turning Rocks into Knowledge 550
An Industry in Change 551
Plate Tectonics and Lithospheric Processes 553
Depositional Modelling 556
Calibration and Reliability of Geological Models 560
Deformation and Heat Flow in Sedimentary Basins 570
Event-driven Construction of Geological Models 574
Visual Interaction with Multiscale Data Sets 582
Former Research Activities 589
Key Factors for Successful Collaboration 590
References 593
A Tale of Three Start-ups 598
Spinning Off from Simula 610
We're Not a Telco, We're a Webco 624
Simula Facts 633
External Contributors 636
Colour Figures 638