Report generation is one of the most important tasks for database and e-commerce applications. Current report tools typically provide a set of predefined components that are used to specify report layout and format. However, available layout options are limited, and WYSIWYG formatting is not allowed. This paper proposes a four-phase report generation process to overcome these problems. The first phase retrieves source tables from the database. The second phase reorganizes the layout of the source tables by transferring the source tables into a set of new flat tables (in the first normal form). The third phase restructures the flat tables into a nested table (report) by specifying the report structure. The last phase formats the report with a WYSIWYG format editor supporting a number of formatting rules designed specifically for nested reports. Each phase of the proposed process supports visual programming, giving an easy-to-use user interface and allowing very flexible report layouts and formats. A visual end-user-programming tool, called TPS, is developed to demonstrate the proposed process and show that reports with sophisticated layouts can be created without writing low-level report generation programs.

A concurrent model of computation and a language based on the model for bit-level operation are useful for developing asynchronous and concurrent programs compositionally, which frequently use bit-level operations. Some examples are programs for video games, hardware emulation (including virtual machines), and signal processing. However, few models and languages are optimized and oriented to bit-level concurrent computation. We previously developed a visual programming language called A-BITS for bit-level concurrent programming. The language is based on a dataflow-like model that computes using processes that provide serial bit-level operations and FIFO buffers connected to them. It can express bit-level computation naturally and develop compositionally. We then devised a concurrent computation model called APEC (Asynchronous Program Elements Connection) for bit-level concurrent computation. This model enables precise and formal expression of the process of computation, and a notion of primitive program elements for controlling and operating can be expressed synthetically. Specifically, the model is based on a notion of uniform primitive processes, called primitives, that have three terminals and four ordered rules at most, as well as on bidirectional communication using vehicles called carriers. A new notion is that a carrier moving between two terminals can briefly express some kinds of computation such as synchronization and bidirectional communication. The model's properties make it most applicable to bit-level computation compositionally, since the uniform computation elements are enough to develop components that have practical functionality. Through future application of the model, our research may enable further research on a base model of fine-grain parallel computer architecture, since the model is suitable for expressing massive concurrency by a network of primitives.