Gio Wiederhold
Encyclopedia
Gio Wiederhold is an Italian
-born computer scientist
who spent most of his career at Stanford University
. His research focuses on the design of large-scale database management system
s, the protection of their content, often using knowledge-based techniques.
, Italy
.
He graduated C.Ae. cum laude in Aeronautical Engineering from the TMS Technicum in Rotterdam
, Netherlands
in 1957.
From 1957 to 1958 he did graduate work at the Technische Hochschule
in Delft
. He worked on computations of short-range missile trajectories at NATO's Air Defense Technical Center
(SADTC) in Wassenaar
near The Hague
in 1958.
From 1958 to 1961 he worked at IBM
's service bureau.
Project at IBM included developing numerical methods for computing the power (specific impulse) of solid rocket fuel combustion in 1959, and
inserting alphabetic I/O capability into FORTRAN
compilers to allow output of chemical equations in 1960.
In 1962 at the University of California, Berkeley
he developed an incremental compiling technology, with a flexibility close to interpreted code, while running at high speed. he also took course work at UC Berkeley. In 1965 he developed similar techniques for the Stanford University Medical School.
The next year he worked on real-time data-acquisition control and data analysis using coupled computers for clinical research, and in 1970 tansposed storage for databases for very-high speed on-line analytical processing, also at the medical school.
From 1973 through 1976 he did graduate work at the University of California, San Francisco
, with his Ph.D. thesis titled "A Methodology for the Design of Medical Database Systems".
An extensive study of computerized ambulatory health care systems, appeared as an appendix to his dissertation.
. He integrated knowledge base
technology exploiting artificial intelligence
concepts to provide intelligent and efficient access to databases which he called KBMS.
He authored a text book on quantitative aspects of database management system
s, first published by McGraw-Hill
in 1977. A second edition was published in 1983. In 1995 the copyright was transferred to Wiederhold, who published an expanded version of the book in 2001.
He also published a book on file organization for databases in 1987.
From 1991 through 1994 Wiederhold served as a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). He initiated the DARPA Intelligent Integration of Information (I3) program. A visible component is the Digital Library
effort, which was delegated to National Science Foundation
; the research has opened up new Internet application fields, and funded projects such as Google
.
His articles on the data semantic interoperability are at the origin of the modern service-oriented architecture
and the success of XML
.
he was named a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics
in 1984, a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
in 1991, and fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) in 1995.
Wiederhold's career included:
In 2001 he retired to be an emeritus
professor
of computer science
with courtesy appointments in medicine
and electrical engineering
.
He has authored and coauthored more than 400 published papers and reports on computing and medicine and served as the associate editor or editor-in-chief of ACM's Transactions on Database Systems (TODS) from 1982 to 1992. His Erdős number
is 3.
Wiederhold and his wife Voy developed historical exhibits in Stanford's Computer Science Building
in cooperation with the Computer History Museum
in Mountain View
.
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
-born computer scientist
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
who spent most of his career at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
. His research focuses on the design of large-scale database management system
Database management system
A database management system is a software package with computer programs that control the creation, maintenance, and use of a database. It allows organizations to conveniently develop databases for various applications by database administrators and other specialists. A database is an integrated...
s, the protection of their content, often using knowledge-based techniques.
Biography
Gio Wiederhold was born June 24, 1936 in VareseVarese
Varese is a town and comune in north-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 55 km north of Milan.It is the capital of the Province of Varese. The hinterland or urban part of the city is called Varesotto.- Geography :...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
.
He graduated C.Ae. cum laude in Aeronautical Engineering from the TMS Technicum in Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
, Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
in 1957.
From 1957 to 1958 he did graduate work at the Technische Hochschule
Delft University of Technology
Delft University of Technology , also known as TU Delft, is the largest and oldest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands...
in Delft
Delft
Delft is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland , the Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam and The Hague....
. He worked on computations of short-range missile trajectories at NATO's Air Defense Technical Center
SHAPE Technical Centre
The SHAPE Technical Centre or Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe Technical Centre was formerly known as the SHAPE Air Defence Technical Centre . It was formed in 1955 and located in The Hague, Netherlands. It conducted research and development for NATO in the area of air defence, in...
(SADTC) in Wassenaar
Wassenaar
Wassenaar is a town in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. A fairly affluent suburb of The Hague, Wassenaar lies 10 km north of that city on the N44 highway near the North Sea coast. It is part of the Haaglanden region...
near The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
in 1958.
From 1958 to 1961 he worked at IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
's service bureau.
Project at IBM included developing numerical methods for computing the power (specific impulse) of solid rocket fuel combustion in 1959, and
inserting alphabetic I/O capability into FORTRAN
Fortran
Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...
compilers to allow output of chemical equations in 1960.
In 1962 at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
he developed an incremental compiling technology, with a flexibility close to interpreted code, while running at high speed. he also took course work at UC Berkeley. In 1965 he developed similar techniques for the Stanford University Medical School.
The next year he worked on real-time data-acquisition control and data analysis using coupled computers for clinical research, and in 1970 tansposed storage for databases for very-high speed on-line analytical processing, also at the medical school.
From 1973 through 1976 he did graduate work at the University of California, San Francisco
University of California, San Francisco
The University of California, San Francisco is one of the world's leading centers of health sciences research, patient care, and education. UCSF's medical, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, and graduate schools are among the top health science professional schools in the world...
, with his Ph.D. thesis titled "A Methodology for the Design of Medical Database Systems".
An extensive study of computerized ambulatory health care systems, appeared as an appendix to his dissertation.
Stanford
In 1976 Wiederhold joined the faculty of Stanford UniversityStanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
. He integrated knowledge base
Knowledge base
A knowledge base is a special kind of database for knowledge management. A Knowledge Base provides a means for information to be collected, organised, shared, searched and utilised.-Types:...
technology exploiting artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
concepts to provide intelligent and efficient access to databases which he called KBMS.
He authored a text book on quantitative aspects of database management system
Database management system
A database management system is a software package with computer programs that control the creation, maintenance, and use of a database. It allows organizations to conveniently develop databases for various applications by database administrators and other specialists. A database is an integrated...
s, first published by McGraw-Hill
McGraw-Hill
The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., is a publicly traded corporation headquartered in Rockefeller Center in New York City. Its primary areas of business are financial, education, publishing, broadcasting, and business services...
in 1977. A second edition was published in 1983. In 1995 the copyright was transferred to Wiederhold, who published an expanded version of the book in 2001.
He also published a book on file organization for databases in 1987.
From 1991 through 1994 Wiederhold served as a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). He initiated the DARPA Intelligent Integration of Information (I3) program. A visible component is the Digital Library
Digital library
A digital library is a library in which collections are stored in digital formats and accessible by computers. The digital content may be stored locally, or accessed remotely via computer networks...
effort, which was delegated to National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
; the research has opened up new Internet application fields, and funded projects such as Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
.
His articles on the data semantic interoperability are at the origin of the modern service-oriented architecture
Service-oriented architecture
In software engineering, a Service-Oriented Architecture is a set of principles and methodologies for designing and developing software in the form of interoperable services. These services are well-defined business functionalities that are built as software components that can be reused for...
and the success of XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
.
he was named a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics
American College of Medical Informatics
The American College of Medical Informatics, is a college of elected fellows from the United States and abroad who have made significant and sustained contributions to the field of medical informatics...
in 1984, a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is a non-profit professional association headquartered in New York City that is dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence...
in 1991, and fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) in 1995.
Wiederhold's career included:
- Rapid presentation of database information for personal computing at VisiCorpVisiCorpVisiCorp was an early personal computer software publisher. Its most famous products are VisiOn and VisiCalc.It was founded in 1976 by Dan Fylstra and Peter R. Jennings as Personal Software, and first published Jennings' Microchess program for the MOS Technology KIM-1 computer, and later Commodore...
(1982). - Model-based transformation of relational database information into object-oriented representations (1986).
- The architectural concepts leading to mediators (1990).
- The development of a very-high-level Megaprogramming language for software composition in 1992.
- A means to protect outgoing private information in practical databases used for collaboration in 1995.
- Means to integrate projections into the future into information systems—SimQL in 1996.
- An approach to scalable semantic interoperation via an ontology algebra in 1998.
- A method to value software intangibles based on balancing initial and maintenance efforts to allocate income in 2005.
In 2001 he retired to be an emeritus
Emeritus
Emeritus is a post-positive adjective that is used to designate a retired professor, bishop, or other professional or as a title. The female equivalent emerita is also sometimes used.-History:...
professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
with courtesy appointments in medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
and electrical engineering
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
.
He has authored and coauthored more than 400 published papers and reports on computing and medicine and served as the associate editor or editor-in-chief of ACM's Transactions on Database Systems (TODS) from 1982 to 1992. His Erdős number
Erdos number
The Erdős number describes the "collaborative distance" between a person and mathematician Paul Erdős, as measured by authorship of mathematical papers.The same principle has been proposed for other eminent persons in other fields.- Overview :...
is 3.
Wiederhold and his wife Voy developed historical exhibits in Stanford's Computer Science Building
William Gates Computer Science Building (Stanford)
The Gates Computer Science Building, or "Gates building" for short, is an L-shaped building that houses the Computer Science Department as well as the Computer Systems Laboratory at Stanford University, California, USA. Construction on the building began in 1994 and was completed in 1996 at a cost...
in cooperation with the Computer History Museum
Computer History Museum
The Computer History Museum is a museum established in 1996 in Mountain View, California, USA. The Museum is dedicated to preserving and presenting the stories and artifacts of the information age, and exploring the computing revolution and its impact on our lives.-History:The museum's origins...
in Mountain View
Mountain View, California
-Downtown:Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south...
.