Norman Brenner

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Professorial Lecturer
Department of Computer Science
The George Washington University

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Contact Information

Norman Brenner
Department of Computer Science
The George Washington University

800 22nd Street NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20052


phone: office (202) 994-6080, cell (301) 980-6374
email: nbrenner@gwu.edu


 

Office Hours

Mon   6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Tue  6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Other times by appointment

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Teaching Activities

This term I am teaching Introduction to Computers & the Internet (CS1021), Introduction to Webpage Design & Javascript (CS1023); next term, I may add Discrete Structures (CS1311).

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Research

Fundamentally, I am interested in rules-based systems. Besides computer programming, I enjoy learning the structure of human languages, and have studied (more often dabbled in) about 150 of them. I like phonology and its representation in spelling, and well-designed computer languages and operating systems.


Some things I am thinking about now:

  • Comparison of website building techniques between ASP and the newer ASP.NET, and also between VB6 and the newer VB.NET and C#
  • Helping the GWU Tourism Department build a data base of international aid projects
  • A discussion of ease of use in programming languages, and excoriation of  “inhuman factors”
  • Examination of the use of Information Technology in legal firms
  • A discussion of the Duke of Wellington as a master manager—winning battles with superior administrative talent
  • Building my favorite programming language, APL, in the MSIL language of Microsoft’s new .NET framework
  • Analysis of a simplified three body gravitational system (Sun, Neptune, Pluto), confirming the orbit-orbit resonance of the latter planets; I plan to redo my hand calculations using Mathematica ®.
  • A pedagogical presentation of solutions to the problem of summing powers of consecutive integers, comparing Bernoulli’s solution with Stirling’s and Faulhaber’s.
  • Learning the structure of several dozen important spoken languages, and learning a few well (Basque, Chinese, Georgian, (Ancient) Greek, Lakhota, Quechua, Polish, Tamil, Wolof)
  • Proposal of practical (i.e. typable/readable/consistent/accurate) orthographies for languages such as Cantonese, Italian, Lakhota, Maya, Swahili, Thai
  • Teaching a survey course on all the languages of the world, emphasizing the common features of phonology and grammar
  • Designing a website to teach a language, whether human or computer, in an optimal pedagogical manner; the human language version would include audio clips, and both would include copious well-chosen examples
  • A Fast Fourier transform of disk-stored data by matrix transposition

 

I am always on the look-out for new and interesting ideas in linguistics, programming languages, military history and dinosaurs as living organisms. From time to time, I give lectures on linguistic topics for the student organization Global Languages Network.  Send me email at nbrenner@gwu.edu with your thoughts!  

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Publications and Preprints

PhD Thesis

·        A 3-D Model for the Spin-Orbit Resonance of the Planet Mercury, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences

 

Refereed Proceedings

·        “APL on a Multiprocessor Architecture”, APL ’82 Conference Proceedings, Association for Computing Machinery

·        “A Powerful But Simple Editor for APL”, APL ’83 Conference Proceedings, Association for Computing Machinery, 195—200

·        “Extending APL for Pattern Matching”, APL ’83 Conference Proceedings, Association for Computing Machinery

·        “Editing APL Objects with CMS XEDIT”, APL ’84 Conference Proceedings, Association for Computing Machinery

·        “VLSI Circuit Design Using APL with Fortran Subroutines”, APL ’84 Conference Proceedings, Association for Computing Machinery

 

Refereed Journals

·        Algorithm 467: Matrix Transposition in Place”, Communications of the ACM, 1972.

·        “Fast Fourier Transposition With Minimum Multiplications”, IEEE Audio & Signal Processing, 1976 (with C. Rader)

 

Book Chapters

·        “The Fast Fourier Transform”, chapter 6.2 of  Methods of Experimental Physics; Vol. 12, Astrophysics, Part C: Radio Observations, Academic Press, 1976

·        “Contour Mapping”, chapter 6.3.1 of  Methods of Experimental Physics; op.cit.

·        “Ruled-Surface Mapping”, chapter 6.3.2 of  Methods of Experimental Physics; op.cit.

·        “Gray-Scale Mapping”, chapter 6.3.3 of  Methods of Experimental Physics; op.cit.

·        “Fast Fourier Transform For Number of  Data Not a Power of Two”, IBM Collection of Numerical Algorithms, 1973.

·        Several Non-numerical Algorithms in APL, APL Handbook of Mathematical Techniques, IBM, 1983.

 

Technical Reports

·        Three Fortran Programs Implementing the Fast Fourier Transform, Lincoln Laboratory Technical Report.

·        Rapidly Bit Reversing Data for the Fast Fourier Transform, Lincoln Laboratory Technical Report.

·        Programs for Performing the FFT, SHARE Program Library, #360D.13.4.001, .002, .003, .005.

 

Presentations

·        "Toward a Model of Cultural Values and Norms: A Confirmatory Factor Analysis", Norman Brenner & Steve McGuire (GWU Mgt. Sci.); presented at 18th Annual Washington Consortium of Schools of Business Research Forum, April 2003

 

Patent Disclosures

·        Fast Fourier Transform for a Small Computer Without Hardware Multiplication, IBM Patent Disclosures, 1972.

 

Research in Progress

·        "Agile Project Management:  An Experiment in the Efficacy of Network-based vs. Hierarchical Management Structures", Fred.  Sencindiver (GWU Mgt Sci) & Norman Brenner

 

·        "Global Attitudes to Ideal Job", Steve McGuire (U Calif), Norman Brenner, Vanessa Perry (GWU Marketing Dept.), Vikas Jain (GWU Marketing)

 

·        "The Duke of Wellington As A Human Resources Manager", to be submitted to Investor's Daily

 

·         Mismanagement at Waterloo:  A Lesson for Senior Management”, to be submitted to Investor’s Daily

 

·        "Sum of Integer Powers--A Pedagogical Review of Methods and Results" , to be submitted to American Mathematical Monthly

 

·        “A Failure of Inheritance: Extending the Treeview Object in Visual Basic .Net”, to be submitted to TOPLAS

 

·        "Unifying Two Modes of Object Type Definition" , to be submitted to TOPLAS

 

·        "Notes on Advanced Features of the HP 49g+/50g Pocket Calculator" , to be submitted to www.hpcalc.org

 

·        "A Simple Model Which Predicts the Orbit-Orbit Resonance of Neptune and Pluto", to be submitted to Astronomical Journal

 

·        Minimal encoding of moves in a chess game”, to be submitted to Chess Bulletin

 

·        A Grammar of Lakhota [with practical romanization]”, adapted from Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 17

 

·        Lessons in the Shanghai Vernacular [with practical romanization]”, adapted from a website by Benjamin X. Ao

 

·        A brief history of programming languages”, submitted to Segue Technologies house blog

 

·        Languages of the World, Ranked by Importance”, to be submitted to Language

 

·        Diacritic-free Romanization For Several Languages, Including Notes on the Conventional Idiocies of Standard Spelling Systems”, to be submitted to Language

 

·        Tom Lehrer’s classic song The Elements, updated”, to be submitted to Mr. Lehrer

 

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Websites

·         "Database of International Aid Projects for Sustainable Tourism", Sheryl Spivack (GWU Tourism Dept), Shaun Mann (Tourism), Z.  Rozga (Tourism), Norman Brenner  Preliminary database of international donor projects

 

·         "SAVE database ", Z.  Rozga (GWU Tourism Dept.), Norman Brenner  Preliminary SAVE database

 

Personal

·         B.A. from Central High School, Philadelphia PA

·         A.B. (Mathematics) from Princeton University, Princeton NJ

·         M.A. (Applied Mathematics) from Harvard University, Cambridge MA

·         Ph,D. (Earth and Planetary Sciences) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge MA

·         Winner of First MIT Spelling Bee  Campus newspaper (The Tech)

·         Married to Krystyna Boron, living in Bethesda MD; two sons, Daniel and Lucas

 

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Page last updated  2009 October 18; 2012 January 16; 2013 February 16; 2014 January 2; 2014 February 5; 2015 March 5