Abstract The Acuity project, in support of a collaborative brain‐tumor research effort, provides WWW‐based input forms implemented as Java applets for updating a WWW‐accessible database. The continuing need to develop new, but closely related, input forms motivated the design and implementation of the Acuity Form Generator (AFG), an automatic form‐generation tool. This paper documents the AFG technology. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Complex graphical user interfaces (GUIs) that support a large amount of user interaction require a fast response time, a rich set of building blocks for an esthetic look-and-feel, and a development environment that supports ongoing change. On the World Wide Web, client-side technologies offer more of these features than do server-side solutions. Java and JavaScript are the two most popular languages used for client-side GUI implementations. Java implementations require a user to download a plug-in that contains a virtual machine to execute the Java byte-code. The installation and maintenance of this plug-in is sometimes an unsurmountable barrier to using Java. JavaScript lacks some of the desirable features of Java, such as easy to use object-oriented features and having a GUI class library, but does not require a plug-in. We have enhanced JavaScript by implementing a new language Object-JavaScript (OJS) and by providing an OJS library of GUI components, thus making it a viable alternative to Java. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Neuro-Oncology Information System (NOIS) supports researchers and other personnel throughout the United States engaged in brain tumor research. Graphical user interfaces that allow data input into the NOIS have been evolving over several years. This paper describes the design and implementation of the NOIS Input Forms as they migrated from a procedural approach to a static object-oriented approach, and finally to a framework approach in which not only static components were reused, but also the patterns of interaction among the components. The paper documents a significant gain in productivity and quality that was realized when using the framework design paradigm. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A Neuro-Oncology Information System (NOIS) has been designed and implemented to support collaborative brain-tumor research, and is being used currently by researchers around the nation. The NOIS serves two groups of brain-tumor researchers, each with complex organizational structures. The complexity of these structures adds greatly to the task of designing an information system to support brain-tumor research. In particular, a lack of a central source of authority among collaborating group members, and the constantly shifting understanding of research objectives and the means to achieve them, have significant impact on the NOIS design and implementation. In this paper, we suggest guidelines for designing, implementing and maintaining an information system in the face of continually shifting goals and priorities in the user community. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A comprehensive data translation system is described with the following characteristics: (1) it is derived from a formal model of the translation task; (2) it supports the building of translation tools; (3) it supports the use of translation tools; and (4) it is accessible to its targeted end users. A software architecture to achieve the translation capability is fully implemented. Translators have been generated using the architecture, both by the original software developers and by industrial associates who have installed the architecture at their own sites.>

End-to-end transport protocols continue to be an active area of research and development involving (1) design and implementation of special-purpose protocols, and (2) reexamination of the design and implementation of general-purpose protocols. This work is motivated by the perceived low bandwidth and high delay, CPU, memory, and other costs of many current general-purpose transport protocol designs and implementations. This paper examines transport protocol mechanisms and implementation issues and argues that general-purpose transport protocols can be effective in a wide range of distributed applications because (1) many of the mechanisms used in the special-purpose protocols can also be used in general-purpose protocol designs and implementations, (2) special-purpose designs have hidden costs, and (3) very special operating system environments, overall system loads, application response times, and interaction patterns are required before general-purpose protocols are the main system performance bottlenecks.