In this provocative book, Barwise and Perry tackle the slippery subject of \"meaning, \" a subject that has long vexed linguists, language philosophers, and logicians.

/pdf/situations-and-attitudes-57f065zg2d.pdf

Situations and Attitudes.

Visual notations form an integral part of the language of software engineering (SE). Yet historically, SE researchers and notation designers have ignored or undervalued issues of visual representation. In evaluating and comparing notations, details of visual syntax are rarely discussed. In designing notations, the majority of effort is spent on semantics, with graphical conventions largely an afterthought. Typically, no design rationale, scientific or otherwise, is provided for visual representation choices. While SE has developed mature methods for evaluating and designing semantics, it lacks equivalent methods for visual syntax. This paper defines a set of principles for designing cognitively effective visual notations: ones that are optimized for human communication and problem solving. Together these form a design theory, called the Physics of Notations as it focuses on the physical (perceptual) properties of notations rather than their logical (semantic) properties. The principles were synthesized from theory and empirical evidence from a wide range of fields and rest on an explicit theory of how visual notations communicate. They can be used to evaluate, compare, and improve existing visual notations as well as to construct new ones. The paper identifies serious design flaws in some of the leading SE notations, together with practical suggestions for improving them. It also showcases some examples of visual notation design excellence from SE and other fields.

The “Physics” of Notations: Toward a Scientific Basis for Constructing Visual Notations in Software Engineering

Background Cytokeratins are specific markers of epithelial cancer cells in bone marrow. We assessed the influence of cytokeratin-positive micrometastases in the bone marrow on the prognosis of women with breast cancer. Methods We obtained bone marrow aspirates from both upper iliac crests of 552 patients with stage I, II, or III breast cancer who underwent complete resection of the tumor and 191 patients with nonmalignant disease. The specimens were stained with the monoclonal antibody A45-B/B3, which binds to an antigen on cytokeratins. The median follow-up was 38 months (range, 10 to 70). The primary end point was survival. Results Cytokeratin-positive cells were detected in the bone marrow specimens of 2 of the 191 control patients with nonmalignant conditions (1 percent) and 199 of the 552 patients with breast cancer (36 percent). The presence of occult metastatic cells in bone marrow was unrelated to the presence or absence of lymph-node metastasis (P=0.13). After four years of follow-up, the presenc...

https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM200002243420801

Cytokeratin-positive cells in the bone marrow and survival of patients with stage I, II, or III breast cancer.

No comprehensive series has evaluated the histologic features of pheochromocytoma to separate benign from malignant pheochromocytoma by histomorphologic parameters only. Fifty histologically malignant and 50 histologically benign pheochromocytomas of the adrenal gland were retrieved from the files of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. The patients included 43 females and 57 males, with an age range of 3-81 years (mean 46.7 years). Patients usually experienced hypertension (n = 79 patients). The mean tumor size was 7.2 cm (weight was 222 g). Histologically, the cases of malignant pheochromocytomas of the adrenal gland more frequently demonstrated invasion (vascular [score = 1], capsular [score = 1], periadrenal adipose tissue [score = 2]), large nests or diffuse growth (score = 2), focal or confluent necrosis (score = 2), high cellularity (score = 2), tumor cell spindling (score = 2), cellular monotony (score = 2), increased mitotic figures (>3/10 high power fields; score = 2), atypical mitotic figures (score = 2), profound nuclear pleomorphism (score = 1), and hyperchromasia (score = 1) than the benign tumors. A Pheochromocytoma of the Adrenal gland Scaled Score (PASS) weighted for these specific histologic features can be used to separate tumors with a potential for a biologically aggressive behavior (PASS > or =4) from tumors that behave in a benign fashion (PASS <4). The pathologic features that are incorporated into the PASS correctly identified tumors with a more aggressive biologic behavior. Application of these criteria to a large cohort of cases will help to elucidate the accuracy of this grading system in clinical practice.

Pheochromocytoma of the Adrenal gland Scaled Score (PASS) to separate benign from malignant neoplasms: a clinicopathologic and immunophenotypic study of 100 cases.

The emerging clinical relevance of bone marrow micrometastasis has prompted several investigations, using a variety of immunocytochemical approaches. The present study was designed to evaluate some...

Methodological Analysis of Immunocytochemical Screening for Disseminated Epithelial Tumor Cells in Bone Marrow

We have developed the visual language compiler-compiler (VLCC) system to automatically generate visual programming environments. VLCC is a grammar based system that can support implementation of any visual language by assisting the language designer in defining the language's graphical objects, syntax, and semantics. The final result of the generation process includes an integrated environment with a visual editor and a compiler for the defined visual language. In VLCC, graphical tools define visual languages to create both graphical objects and composition rules. Visual editors enable language designers to directly and visually manipulate the syntax of these languages. To capture the widest range of visual languages, the VLCC system can be configured for a specific language class. Different language classes can be characterized depending on their graphical objects' structure and on the way they can be composed. Also, box and arrow diagrams are defined for primitive objects with attaching points and for composition rules to join boxes and arrows at those attaching points. After choosing the visual language type to create, the designer can concentrate on language definition details. VLCC uses the positional grammar model as its underlying grammar formalism. >

Automatic generation of visual programming environments

An important step in the design of visual languages is the specification of the graphical objects and the composition rules for constructing feasible visual sentences. The presence of different typologies of visual languages, each with specific graphical and structural characteristics, yields the need to have models and tools that unify the design steps for different types of visual languages. To this aim, in this paper we present a formal framework of visual language classes. Each class characterizes a family of visual languages based upon the nature of their graphical objects and composition rules. The framework has been embedded in the Visual Language Compiler–Compiler (VLCC), a graphical system for the automatic generation of visual programming environments.

http://msdl.cs.mcgill.ca/people/hv/teaching/MSBDesign/notes.ClassificationFrameworkVisualLanguages.pdf

A Classification Framework to Support the Design of Visual Languages

Use of monoclonal antibody MBr1 to detect micrometastases in bone marrow specimens of breast cancer patients.

The Visual Language Compiler-Compiler (VLCC) is a grammar-based graphical system for the automatic generation of visual programming environments. In this paper the theoretical and algorithmic issues of VLCC are discussed in detail. The parsing methodology we present is based on the "positional grammar" model. Positional grammars naturally extend context-free grammars by considering new relations in addition to string concatenation. Thanks to this, most of the results from LR parsing can be extended to the positional grammars inheriting the well known LR technique efficiency. In particular, we provide algorithms to implement a YACC-like tool embedded in the VLCC system for automatic compiler generation of visual languages described by positional grammars.

A parsing methodology for the implementation of visual systems

We describe a design methodology for iconic languages based upon the theory of icon algebra to derive the meaning of iconic sentences. The design methodology serves two purposes. First of all, it is a descriptive model for the design process of the iconic languages used in the Minspeak? systems for augmentative communication. Second, it is also a prescriptive model for the design of other iconic languages for human-machine interface. An interactive design environment based upon this methodology is described. This investigation raises a number of interesting issues regarding iconic languages and iconic communications.

Sergio Orefice

Papers

Automatic generation of visual programming environments

A Classification Framework to Support the Design of Visual Languages

Use of monoclonal antibody MBr1 to detect micrometastases in bone marrow specimens of breast cancer patients.

A parsing methodology for the implementation of visual systems

A methodology and interactive environment for iconic language design