Towards A Framework For The Design And Evaluation Of Fourth Generation Languages

Masters Theses in the Pure and Applied Sciences was first conceived, published, and disseminated by the Center for Information and Numerical Data Analysis and Synthesis (CINDAS)* at Purdue University in 1957, starting its coverage of theses with the academic year 1955. Beginning with Volume 13, the printing and dis semination phases of the activity were transferred to University Microfilms/Xerox of Ann Arbor, Michigan, with the though that such an arrangement would be more beneficial to the academic and general scientific and technical community. After five years of this joint undertaking we had concluded that it was in the interest of all concerned if the printing and distribution of the volumes were handled by an international publishing house to assure improved service and broader dissemi nation. Hence, starting with Volume 18, Masters Theses in the Pure and Applied Sciences has been disseminated on a worldwide basis by Plenum Publishing Corporation of New York, and in the same year the coverage was broadened to include Canadian universities. All back issues can also be ordered from Plenum. We have reported in Volume 37 (thesis year 1992) a total of 12,549 thesis titles from 25 Canadian and 153 United States universities. We are sure that this broader base for these titles reported will greatly enhance the value of this impor tant annual reference work. While Volume 37 reports theses submitted in 1992, on occasion, certain uni versities do report theses submitted in previous years but not reported at the time.

Volume 37 (thesis year 1992) reports a total of 12,549 thesis titles from 25 Canadian and 153 US universities (theses submitted in previous years but only now reported are indicated by the thesis year shown in parenthesis). The organization, like that of past years, consists of thesis titles arrange

"This book seeks to set the field of fourth--generation languages into perspective, discussing the mechanism, uses and future evolution of the new tools."--Preface

The initial motivator for the development of DRM, a Design Research Methodology, and the subsequent writing of this book was our frustration about the lack of a common terminology, benchmarked research methods, and above all, a common research methodology in design. A shared view of the goals and framework for doing design research was missing. Design is a multidisciplinary activity occurring in multiple application areas and involving multiple stakeholders. As a consequence, design research emerges in a variety of disciplines for a variety of applications with a variety of subjects. This makes it particularly difficult to review its literature, relate various pieces of work, find common ground, and validate and share results that are so essential for sustained progress in a research community. Above all, design research needs to be successful not only in an academic sense, but also in a practical sense. How could we help the community develop knowledge that is both academically and practically worthwhile? Each of us had our individual ideas of how this situation could be improved. Lucienne Blessing, while finishing her thesis that involved studying and improving the design process, developed valuable insights about the importance and relationship of empirical studies in developing and evaluating these improvements. Amaresh Chakrabarti, while finishing his thesis on developing and evaluating computational tools for improving products, had developed valuable insights about integrating and improving the processes of building and evaluating tools.