The Clip Group

The Computational Logic, Implementation, and Parallelism (CLIP) Group at the Computer Science School of the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) started in 1990, and since then has been strongly committed to developing solutions which at the same time constitute quality research with a strong theoretical foundation and result in clearly applicable technology.

The group has a long and active research history in (Constraint) Logic Programming, mainly in the fields of program analysis, implementation of sequential and parallel systems, visualization, and program development environments (including static / dynamic debugging and user interfaces). A number of popular products in the area include the results of these research efforts. The Clip group is actively involved in the practical application of (constraint) logic based programming languages and systems in emerging application areas.

The Clip Group has developed, among others, the constraint logic programming system and development enviroment Ciao. Ciao is a LGPL licensed, free software system, which is being used in industrial applications and in academia, and it is their main platform for developing logic-based applications and performing language design and implementation research. Ciao Prolog offers unique possibilities of extension which have allowed writing many libraries which add significant functionality: constraint solvers, concurrency, distributed and agent programming primitives, persistence, higher-order, objects, foreign language interfaces, etc. In this context, the Clip Group has also developed the PiLLoW library, arguably the most widely used library for interfacing (constraint) logic programming systems to the WWW. The Clip Group has also developed and distributes freely an automatic documentation generator for logic-based programming systems (lpdoc).

UPM's Clip Group has also defined and implemented several analysis frameworks for (constraint) logic languages, with applications ranging from automatic detection of parallelism to performance improvement through better compilation. The information obtained from such an analysis has also been used to discover inconsistencies with respect to program assertions to drive static / dynamic debugging tools. All these techniques are integrated in a generic preprocessor, instances of which are CiaoPP (for Ciao) and CHIPRE (for CHIP). Several 2D and 3D techniques for visualization of the run-time behavior of constraint programs have been also tested and implemented within the Ciao project.

The research group at UPM has participated in several European and Spanish projects in the last 12 years. Among them we may cite, as more directly related to the present proposal, the ESPRIT projects DiSCiPl, RadioWeb, Vocal, ACCLAIM, PRINCE, and ParForCe, and the ERCIM working group on constraints, HCM Abile program, and the COMPULOG II/III and Colognet Networks of Excellence. The group has also been granted projects by the Spanish government such as IPL-D, ELLA, and EDIPIA, which are related to the development and implementation of advanced logic systems and analysis tools for them. UPM has also obtained a U.S.A.-Spain Fulbright and NATO scientific collaboration grants. Besides a well-established undergraduate and PhD curriculum and strong relationships with other universities worldwide in the form of regular student exchanges, UPM has collaborated with a large number of companies in different projects. The companies with which UPM has currently contacts with, or has collaborated with, include SAGE (the Spanish branch of the German Software AG), Motorola Inc., Iberdrola (the main Spanish electrical company), PrologIA (France), OEM Partners (Belgium), Ibermatica (Spain), and Dalet (Israel). Additionally, UPM's Ciao Prolog System, as well as some related tools, are being used by industries in the development of several products including WWW interfaces, B2B systems, and agent systems.

The CLIP group acts as coordinator in the project, and also takes the role of technology provider, due to its long standing experience on logic programming systems and environments.

Conecta Srl

Conecta was born in May of 1995, with the goal of offering tools for total network integration and training, and IT consulting to business customers. From the start, Conecta focused on offering high quality services, with a strong belief on Open Source code as a way to suit the customers needs. Conecta extended his reach to offer open source consulting, code porting, network planning, e-commerce, and business integration services. This allowed the firm to create a complete infrastructure for the creation of e-commerce and e-hub systems-one of the firsts in Italy. With a staff of 12 people, several external consultants, and a projected revenue of one million Euros for the year 2001, Conecta is now one of the most important open source consulting firms in Italy and one of the few independent houses for the creation of high-level e-commerce and transactional systems. Conecta has extensive experience in performing matching of open source, and its past experience can be used in order to perform a verification of the adequateness of the outcome of the project with respect to its goals. It has also an extensive experience in creating complex software systems out of open source components, creating the necessary glue code, and improving and extending the individual pieces to meet the customer needs. This allows the company to address immediately the technical difficulties of the project and also to apply it immediately to real world examples.