Accurate Numerical Algorithms

The ESPRIT Project 1072, DIAMOND (Development and Integration of Accurate Mathematical Operations in Numerical Data-Processing) was carried out from January 1986 through April 1989 by the five partners Siemens Miinchen (prime contractor), CWI Amsterdam, University of Karlsruhe (Institut fiir Ange­ wandte Mathematik), NAG Oxford and University of Bath (subcontractor to NAG). The technical work was divided into three main work packages with one additional work package for miscellaneous topics. The major goals of this project, according to its title, were to develop a set of accurate numerical algorithms (work package 3) and to provide tools to support their implementation by means of an embedding of accurate arithmetic into programming languages (work package 1) and by transform­ ation techniques which either improve the accuracy of expression evaluation or detect and eliminate presumable deficiencies in accuracy in existing programs (work package 2). A great variety of working papers describing and discussing the results of these work packages have been written during the collaboration of the project. This book (Accurate Numericlll A 19oritltms) mainly summarizes the results of work package 3, carried through by the two partners Karlsruhe University and NAG Oxford under the leadership of the editors and Dr. G. S. Hodgson. Another book (Improving Floating-Point Programming, J. Tliley, to appear 1989), edited by P.J.L. Wallis, which is one of the DIAMOND project's final deliverables, concentrates more on the fundamental tools.