JavaScript is the most widely used web language for client-side applications. Whilst the development of JavaScript was initially just led by implementation, there is now increasing momentum behind the ECMA standardisation process. The time is ripe for a formal, mechanised specification of JavaScript, to clarify ambiguities in the ECMA standards, to serve as a trusted reference for high-level language compilation and JavaScript implementations, and to provide a platform for high-assurance proofs of language properties.

JavaScript has become the most widely used language for client-side web programming. The dynamic nature of JavaScript makes understanding its code notoriously difficult, leading to buggy programs and a lack of adequate static-analysis tools. We believe that logical reasoning has much to offer JavaScript: a simple description of program behaviour, a clear understanding of module boundaries, and the ability to verify security contracts. We introduce a program logic for reasoning about a broad subset of JavaScript, including challenging features such as prototype inheritance and "with". We adapt ideas from separation logic to provide tractable reasoning about JavaScript code: reasoning about easy programs is easy; reasoning about hard programs is possible. We prove a strong soundness result. All libraries written in our subset and proved correct with respect to their specifications will be well-behaved, even when called by arbitrary JavaScript code.

The study of the genetics of diseases has been revolutionised by the advent of genome-wide genotyping technologies. Increasingly, genome-wide association studies are being used to identify positions within the human genome that have a link with a disease condition. These new data sets require the use of distributed resources, both for the statistical analysis and for the interpretation of the analysis results. Aiding the latter will be be crucial for the statistical analysis process to be successful. In this paper we report our experiences in developing a user-friendly High Performance Computing (HPC) statistical genetics analysis platform for use by clinical researchers. Specifically, we report work on supporting the interpretation process through the automatic annotation of the statistical analysis results with relevant biological information. Retrieval of the biological annotation is performed by high-volume invocation of multiple Web-services orchestrated via pre-existing scientific workflows. We also report work on developing tools to aid the capture and replay of the processes performed by a user when exploring analysis results.

The study of the genetic causes of disease is entering a new era. Variations in DNA sequence between individuals at a single position (locus) within the human genome are termed single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), and may lead to a frank disease state or a variation in normal physiology. By comparing and contrasting the genomes of people who have a disease with the genomes of people who don't, we can begin to identify those genetic locii which potentially play a role in the disease. Modern biotechnology allows for the genotyping of individuals at hundreds of thousands of genetic locii. Whilst metrics to quantify the statistical importance of a single locus are essentially of low complexity, for example calculation of a x2statistic, within a genome-wide association study this process is repeated at every locus. In addition, the entire computational process is often repeated with a number of randomised data sets, necessary for estimation of the statistical significance. The large number of locii, number of randomized data sets, and rapid combinatorial increase when analysing multiple SNPs, naturally dictates that a high performance computing (HPC) solution be developed. On a single core machine analysis of significant numbers of SNP pairs would take many years. Once statistical analysis of the data has been performed results must be annotated with relevant information to aid biological interpretation and hypothesis generation - this is a standard, but not in substantial bioinformatic task.

The W3C Document Object Model (DOM) specifies an XML update library. DOM is written in English, and is therefore not compositional and not complete. We provide a first step towards a compositional specification of DOM. Unlike DOM, we are able to work with a minimal set of commands and obtain a complete reasoning for straight-line code. Our work transfers O'Hearn, Reynolds and Yang's local Hoare reasoning for analysing heaps to XML, viewing XML as an in-place memory store as does DOM. In particular, we apply recent work by Calcagno, Gardner and Zarfaty on local Hoare reasoning about simple tree update to this real-world DOM application. Our reasoning not only formally specifies a significant subset of DOM Core Level 1, but can also be used to verify, for example, invariant properties of simple Javascript programs.

Travel can be a stressful experience and it is an activity that is difficult to prepare for in advance. Although maps, routes and landmarks can be memorised, travellers do not get much sense of the spatial layout of the destination and can easily get confused when they arrive. There is little doubt that virtual environments techniques can assist in such situations, by, for example, providing walkthroughs of virtual cityscapes to effect route learning.

me development of shared environments and displays has rdso seen the emergence of faci~ties to Wow some form of subjective tailoring of shared interfaces.~s paper considers the need to dynamically re-couple tailored intetiaces as users become increasingly aware of each other.We present a gened model to support awareness based re-coupling of shared interfaces and show its implementation in cooperative virtual environments and shared user intefices.

The growth in interest in virturd environments in CSCW has focused on cwopemtion within these environments.Lltie consideration has been given to how users manage these environments and their movement between them.h this paper we present a session management architecture that supports the management of_ environments.The developed architecture is built upon them protocol and is sufficiently geneti to Mow it to support a range of CSCW application.We present the architecture and its use to support both tid environments and more generic cooperative applications.

Visualisations of virtual worlds by current Cooperative Virtual Environments (CVEs) are identical for each user, albeit fi-om a different viewpoint.Users cannot tailor their representation of the virtual scene or the degree to which they are aware of other user's activities.This paper describes the implementation of a mechanism to support subjective views of shared virtual worlds, and describes how this mechanism is utilised to enhance an existing 3D application.

Article Free Access Share on Cooperative virtual environments: lessons from 2D multi user interfaces Author: Gareth Smith Computing Department, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK Computing Department, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UKView Profile Authors Info & Claims CSCW '96: Proceedings of the 1996 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative workNovember 1996 Pages 390–398https://doi.org/10.1145/240080.240350Published:16 November 1996Publication History 17citation335DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations17Total Downloads335Last 12 Months15Last 6 weeks0 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteeReaderPDF