Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology

esearch laboratories in computing 403MetacharacterMETACHARACTERS IN REGULAR EXPRESSIONSMeaning. (period) Matches any single character in that position? Matches zero or one of any character* Matches zero or more of the preceding character (thus * matches any number of characters)+ Matches one or more of the preceding character (thus 9+ matches 9, 99, 999, etc.)[ ] Matches any of the characters enclosed by the brackets– Specifies a range of characters. Placing the range in brackets will match any character within therange. For example, [0–9] matches any digit, [A–Z] matches any uppercase character, and [A–Za–z]matches any alphabetic character.\ “Quotes” the following character. If it is a metacharacter, the following character will be treated as anordinary character. Thus \? matches an actual question mark.^Matches the beginning of a line$ Matches the end of a lineand type the “before” and “after” words into a dialog box.However, even in such cases if the user has some familiaritywith regular expressions, more sophisticated substitutionscan be accomplished. In Microsoft Word, for example,a variety of wildcards (i.e., metacharacters) can be usedfor operations that would be hard to accomplish throughmouse selections.Further ReadingFriedl, Jeffrey. Mastering Regular Expressions. 3rd ed. Sebastapol,Calif.: O’Reilly, 2006.Regular Expressions Tutorial, Tools & Languages, Examples,Books & Reference. Available online. URL: http://www.regular-expressions.info/. Accessed August 19, 2007.Stubblebine, Tony. Regular Expression Pocket Reference: RegularExpressions for Perl, Ruby, PHP, Python, C, Java and .NET.Sebastapol, Calif.: O’Reilly, 2007.Watt, Andrew. Beginning Regular Expressions. Indianapolis: Wiley,2005.research laboratories in computingThe value of creating and maintaining environments forlong-term research in computer science and engineeringhas long been recognized by academic institutions, industryorganizations, and corporations.Academic Research InstitutionsArtificial intelligence and robotics have been the focus ofmany academic computer science research facilities (seeartificial intelligence and robotics). They are examplesof areas that show great potential but that demanda substantial investment in long-term research. There aremany research organizations in the AI field, but a few standout as particularly important examples.The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ArtificialIntelligence Lab has a wide-ranging program but hasemphasized robotics and related fields such as computervision and language processing.The MIT Media Lab has become well known for workwith new media technologies and the digital and graphicalrepresentation of data. However, in recent years it hasexpanded its focus to the broader area of human-machineinteraction and the pervasive presence of intelligent devicesin the home and larger environment.The Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL)played an important role in the development of the LISPlanguage (see LISP) and other AI research. Today Stanford’simportant role in AI is continued by its Robotics Laboratoryand the Knowledge Systems Laboratory. Carnegie MellonUniversity also has a number of influential AI labs andresearch projects.On the international scene Japan has had strong researchprograms in academic and industrial AI, such as the NeuralComputing Center at Keio University and the Knowledge-Based Systems Laboratory at Shizuoka University. There area number of important AI research groups in the UnitedKingdom, such as at Cambridge, Oxford, King’s College,and the University of Edinburgh (where the logic languageProlog was developed).Some of the most interesting research sometimesemerges from outside the main concerns of an institution.The World Wide Web, for example, was developed by TimBerners-Lee (see Berners-Lee, Tim) while he was workingwith the coordination of scientific computing at CERN, thegiant European particle physics laboratory.Corporate Research InstitutionsThe challenging nature of computer applications and thecompetitiveness of the industry have also led a number ofmajor companies to underwrite permanent research institutions.Much corporate-funded research has gone into developingthe basic infrastructure of computing rather than tothe more esoteric topics pursued by academic departments.However, corporations have also funded “pure” researchthat may have little short-term application but can ultimatelylead to new technologies.The concept of the industrial laboratory is often attributedto Thomas Edison, whose famous Menlo Park, NewJersey, facility (founded in 1876) put experimentation anddevelopment of new inventions on a systematic, continuousbasis. Instead of an invention forming the basis for a company,Edison saw invention itself as the core business.