This volume consists of a collection of 28 papers presented at the NATO Advanced Study Institute held July 14-27, 1985 in the beautiful resort at Les Arcs, France. The director of this ASI was A. K. Sood and A. H. Qureshi was the co-director. Since its introduction in the early 1970s the relational data model has been widely accepted. Several research and industrial efforts are being undertaken to develop special purpose database machines to implement the relational model. In addition, database machines are being explored for applications such as image processing and information retrieval. In this NATO-ASI the lecturers discussed special purpose database machine architectures from the viewpoint of architecture and hardware detail, software, user needs, theoretical framework and applications. The papers presented were of two types - regular papers and short papers. The research in database machines is being conducted in several countries. This fact is under­ scored when it is noted that papers in this volume are authored by researchers in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Turkey, U.K. and U.S.A. The first paper discusses the experience and applications of users with a commercially available database machine. In the following eight papers the characteristics of six database machines are discussed. The second, third and fourth papers deal with the RDBM project at the Technical University of Braunschweig (Germany). Zeidler discusses the design objectives, architecture and system design of RDBM. Teich presents the hardware utilized for sorting.

Inhalt

User Experience with the Britton Lee IDM 500.- RDBM - A Relational Database Machine Based on a Dedicated Multiprocessor System.- RDBM - Special Hardware Design for Sorting.- RDBM - Software Considerations and Performance Evaluation.- DBMAC: A Parallel Relational Database Machine.- Massive Parallel Database Computer MPDC and Its Control Schemes for Massively Parallel Processing.- Development of Delta as a First Step to a Knowledge Base Machine.- A Relational Database Machine for Very Large Information Retrieval Systems.- Design and Implementation of Sabre - a Deductive and Parallel Database Machine.- to a Mathematical Foundation for Systems Development - a Hypermodel Syntax for Precision Modeling of Arbitrarily Complex Systems.- A Comparison of Performance of Similar Queries on Similar Databases on Several Relational Systems - Hardware and Software.- Some Remarks on the Interface Between Database Machines and Database Applications in Network Environments.- Sorting and Join Algorithms for Multiprocessor Database Machines.- From Databases to Artificial Intelligence: a Hardware Point of View.- Hardware Implementation of Relational Algebra Operations.- CAFS-ISP - A UK Content Addressable File Store.- Intelligent Cellular Systems: a New Direction for Total System Design.- Bus Arbitration Concepts for the Fifth Generation Advance.- IKBS and Intelligent Machine Interfaces.- FDE: A System for Experiments in Interfaces Between Logic Programming and Database Systems.- Transmedia Machine.- An Architecture for Integrating Images and Text in a Database Environment.- Explosion in the Amount of Satellite Acquired Image Data and the Requirements for New Image Data Base Systems.- Integration of Fact/Document Retrieval Systems Incorporating the Support of a Database Machine and a Clustering Scheme.- A VLSI Processor for Concurrent List Intersection.- METU-GDBMS: A Generalized DBMS for the RAP Database Machine.- Associative Memory and Database Machines - a Brief Survey and a Design Proposal Using Hardware Hashing.- The Design of an Adaptive Expert Database Interface.