Recently, Sloane and Sellers solved a certain box stacking problem related to non– squashing partitions. These are defined as partitions n = p1 + p2 + · · · + pk with 1 ≤ p1 ≤ p2 ≤ · · · ≤ pk wherein p1 + · · · + pj ≤ pj+1 for 1 ≤ j ≤ k − 1. Sloane has also hinted at a generalized box stacking problem which is closely related to generalized non–squashing partitions. We solve this generalized bo...

The authors convened a focus group of senior IT managers from a variety of different companies/industries to explore current practice in terms of creating and evolving a technology roadmap. Starting with a definition of a technology roadmap, the paper outlines the benefits attributable to a well-crafted roadmap and presents a 7-step model for its creation. According to the focus group, companie...

This study investigated the self-regulation, goal orientation, and academic achievement of 40 secondary students who completed online university courses in the sciences. Students were enrolled in one of three online university science courses. Each course was taught by a two-person team, made up of one university science professor and one secondary classroom science teacher, over a 6-week perio...

THE COMPUTER INDUSTRY IS EXPERIENCING a major shift: improved single-processor performance via higher clock rates has reached its technical limits due to overheating. Fortunately, Moore’s law still holds, so chip makers use transistors to boost performance through parallelism. Modern chips consist of multiple microprocessors (also called cores), buses, and cache memory on the same chip. As of t...

A COMPUTER SYSTEM’S security can be compromised in many ways— a denial-of-service attack can make a server inoperable, a worm can destroy a user’s private data, or an eavesdropper can reap fi nancial rewards by inserting himself in the communication link between a customer and her bank through a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack. What all these scenarios have in common is that the adversary is an...

AT THE FIRST software engineering (SE) conference in 1968, Doug McIlroy introduced the concept of software components during his keynote speech, “Mass-Produced Software Components.”1 That components hold such an esteemed place in SE history should come as no surprise: componentization is a fundamental engineering principle. Top-down approaches decompose large systems into smaller parts—componen...