Philip J. Kiviat (born October 15, 1937)[citation needed] is noted, along with Alan Pritsker,[1] for half a century of work on computer simulation.

Biography

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Kiviat studied at Cornell University from 1955-1961.[2] While working from 1961-1963 for U.S. Steel Corporation he pioneered the development of the original GASP software, which was later enhanced by Alan Pritsker to form GASP II. After moving to RAND Corporation in 1964, Kiviat worked with Harry Markowitz to produce SIMSCRIPT II.

His subsequent work at the 1972-founded Federal Systems Integration and Management Center (FEDSIM) earned him recognition as "the simulation czar of the federal government."[2]

He is also known for the eponymous Kiviat Graph[3] (also identified as a Kiviat diagram,[4] Kiviat chart,[5] Polar chart or Radar chart).[6]

View of the future

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In a 2013 interview about the future of simulation software in the hands of non-professionals, he said "I saw above the door to the MIT simulation lab back in the early 1960s which was SINSFIT - Simulation is No Substitute For Intelligent Thinking."[7]

Following years with FEDSIM, Kiviat went "into management and selling."[7][8]

References

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  1. ^ James R. Wilson; David Goldsman (October 2000). "A. Alan B. Pritsker".
  2. ^ a b Richard E. Nance (May 21, 2013). "Philip J. Kiviat".
  3. ^ Tinsfeldt, Mette; Jensen, Per Anker (2014). "Value Adding Space Management in Higher Education". Proceedings of CIB Facilities Management Conference 2014: 369–380.
  4. ^ Yu-Ting Wong; Kai-Yin Cheng; Sheng-Jie Luo; Bing-Yu Chen (2010). Visualizing Information Evolution (PDF). Proceedings of Computer Graphics Workshop 2010. Hsinchu, Taiwan: National Chiao Tung University.
  5. ^ when used in Excel
  6. ^ Kenneth W. Kolence (1973). "The Software Empiricist". ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review. 2 (2): 31–36. doi:10.1145/1113644.1113647. S2CID 18600391. Dr. Philip J. Kiviat suggested .. a circular graph, using .. I recommend they be called "Kiviat Plots" or "Kiviat Graphs" to recognize ..
  7. ^ a b Ernie Page; John Tufarolo (December 19, 1997). "Philip J. Kiviat Interview".
  8. ^ "American computer executive"
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