Grid Remote Execution (G-Rex) of Climate Models

G-Rex is light-weight Java middleware that allows scientific applications deployed on remote computer systems to be launched and controlled as if they are running on the user's own computer. G-Rex is particularly suited to ocean and climate modelling applications because output from the model is transferred back to the user while the run is in progress, which prevents the accumulation of large amounts of data on the remote cluster. The G-Rex server is a RESTful Web application that runs inside a servlet container on the remote system, and the client component is a Java command line program that can easily be incorporated into existing scientific work-flow scripts. The NEMO and POLCOMS ocean models have been deployed as G-Rex services in the NERC Cluster Grid, and G-Rex is the core grid middleware in the GCEP and GCOMS e-science projects.

Non-commutative symbolic coding

We give a non-commutative generalization of classical symbolic coding in the presence of a synchronizing word. This is done by a scattering theoretical approach. Classically, the existence of a synchronizing word turns out to be equivalent to asymptotic completeness of the corresponding Markov process. A criterion for asymptotic completeness in general is provided by the regularity of an associated extended transition operator. Commutative and non-commutative examples are analysed.

The symbolic value of grafting in ancient Rome

Some scholars have read Virgil’s grafted tree (G. 2.78–82) as a sinister image, symptomatic of man’s perversion of nature. However, when it is placed within the long tradition of Roman accounts of grafting (in both prose and verse), it seems to reinforce a consistently positive view of the technique, its results, and its possibilities. Virgil’s treatment does represent a significant change from Republican to Imperial literature, whereby grafting went from mundane reality to utopian fantasy. This is reflected in responses to Virgil from Ovid, Columella, Calpurnius, Pliny the Elder, and Palladius (with Republican context from Cato, Varro, and Lucretius), and even in the postclassical transformation of Virgil’s biography into a magical folktale.

Enhancing dominant modes in nonstationary time series by means of the symbolic resonance analysis

We present the symbolic resonance analysis (SRA) as a viable method for addressing the problem of enhancing a weakly dominant mode in a mixture of impulse responses obtained from a nonlinear dynamical system. We demonstrate this using results from a numerical simulation with Duffing oscillators in different domains of their parameter space, and by analyzing event-related brain potentials (ERPs) from a language processing experiment in German as a representative application. In this paradigm, the averaged ERPs exhibit an N400 followed by a sentence final negativity. Contemporary sentence processing models predict a late positivity (P600) as well. We show that the SRA is able to unveil the P600 evoked by the critical stimuli as a weakly dominant mode from the covering sentence final negativity. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.

Autonomous execution of tasks by swarm carrier agents in swarm-array computing

How can a bridge be built between autonomic computing approaches and parallel computing system? The work reported in this paper is motivated towards bridging this gap by proposing swarm-array computing, a novel technique to achieve autonomy for distributed parallel computing systems. Among three proposed approaches, the second approach, namely 'Intelligent Agents' is of focus in this paper. The task to be executed on parallel computing cores is considered as a swarm of autonomous agents. A task is carried to a computing core by carrier. agents and can be seamlessly transferred between cores in the event of a pre-dicted failure, thereby achieving self-ware objectives of autonomic computing. The feasibility of the proposed approach is validated on a multi-agent simulator.

Antecedents of attitude and intention towards counterfeit symbolic and experiential products

This paper investigates the impact of price consciousness, perceived risk, and ethical obligation on attitude and intention towards counterfeit products. Data were collected from a sample of 200 respondents via an online questionnaire. A conceptual model was derived and tested via structural equation modelling in the contexts of symbolic and experiential counterfeit products. Findings show differences in the factors (and weight thereof) impacting attitude and purchase intention in the two product contexts. Specifically, ethical obligation and perceived risk are found to be significant predictors of attitude towards both symbolic and counterfeit products, while price consciousness is found to predict only attitude towards experiential products, but not purchase intention in either counterfeit product context.

Rights, symbolic violence and the micro-politics of the rural: the case of the Parish Paths Partnership scheme

In this paper microlevel politics and conflict associated with social and economic change in the countryside and linked changes in rural governance are explored with a focus upon research carried out on a recent rural policy initiative aimed at local 'empowerment'. This acts as a touchstone for a wider theoretical discussion. The paper is theorised within a conceptual framework derived and extended from the work of Pierre Bourdieu and others in order to explore case studies of the English Countryside Commission's Parish Paths Partnership scheme. The micropolitics involved with this scheme are examined and used to highlight more general issues raised by increased 'parish empowerment' in the 'postrural'.