Automated proofs of computational indistinguishability

We present a tool for automatic analysis of computational indistinguishability between two strings of information. This is designed as a generic tool for proving cryptographic security based on a formalism that provides computational soundness preservation. The tool has been implemented and tested successfully with several cryptographic schemes.

Connectivity of workflow nets : the foundations of stepwise verification

Behavioral models capture operational principles of real-world or designed systems. Formally, each behavioral model defines the state space of a system, i.e., its states and the principles of state transitions. Such a model is the basis for analysis of the system’s properties. In practice, state spaces of systems are immense, which results in huge computational complexity for their analysis. Behavioral models are typically described as executable graphs, whose execution semantics encodes a state space. The structure theory of behavioral models studies the relations between the structure of a model and the properties of its state space. In this article, we use the connectivity property of graphs to achieve an efficient and extensive discovery of the compositional structure of behavioral models; behavioral models get stepwise decomposed into components with clear structural characteristics and inter-component relations. At each decomposition step, the discovered compositional structure of a model is used for reasoning on properties of the whole state space of the system. The approach is exemplified by means of a concrete behavioral model and verification criterion. That is, we analyze workflow nets, a well-established tool for modeling behavior of distributed systems, with respect to the soundness property, a basic correctness property of workflow nets. Stepwise verification allows the detection of violations of the soundness property by inspecting small portions of a model, thereby considerably reducing the amount of work to be done to perform soundness checks. Besides formal results, we also report on findings from applying our approach to an industry model collection.

The biconnected verification of workflow nets

Formal representations of business processes are used for analysis of the process behavior. Workflow nets are a widely used formalism for describing the behavior of business processes. Structure theory of processes investigates the relation between the structure of a model and its behavior. In this paper, we propose to employ the connectivity property of workflow nets as an angle to their structural analysis. In particular, we show how soundness verification can be organized using biconnected components of a workflow net. This allows for efficient identification and localization of flaws in the behavior of workflow nets and for supporting process analysts with diagnostic information

The case for unitary taxation with formulary apportionment in the finance sector and the effect on developing nations

In 2013 the OECD released its 15 point Action plan to deal with base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS). In that plan it was recognised that BEPS has a significant effect on developing countries. This is because the lack of tax revenue can lead to a critical underfunding of public investment that would help promote economic growth. To this end, the BEPS project is aimed at ensuring an inclusive approach to take into account not only views of the G20 and OECD countries but also the perspective of developing nations. With this focus in mind and in the context of developing nations, the purpose of this article is to consider a possible solution to profit shifting which occurs under the current transfer pricing regime, with that solution being unitary taxation with formulary apportionment. It does so using the finance sector as a specific case for application. Multinational financial institutions (MNFIs) play a significant role in financing activities of their clients in developing nations. Consistent with the ‘follow-the-client’ phenomenon which explains financial institution expansion, these entities are increasingly profiting from activities associated with this growing market. Further, not only are MNFIs persistent users of tax havens but also, more than other industries, have opportunities to reduce tax through transfer pricing measures. This article establishes a case for an industry specific adoption of unitary taxation with formulary apportionment as a viable alternative to the current regime. It argues that such a model would benefit not only developed nations but also developing nations which are currently suffering the effects of BEPS. In doing so, it considers the practicalities of such an implementation by examining both definitional issues and a possible formula for MNFIs. This article argues that, while there would be implementation difficulties to overcome, the current domestic models of formulary apportionment provide important guidance as to how the unitary business and business activities of MNFIs should be defined as well as factors that should be included in an allocation formula, along with the appropriate weighting. While it would be difficult for developing nations to adopt such a regime, it is argued that it would be no more difficult than addressing issues they face with the current transfer pricing regime. As such, this article concludes that unitary taxation with formulary apportionment is a viable industry specific alternative for MNFIs which would assist developing nations and aid independent fiscal soundness.

Revisiting the Task-Capability interface model for incorporating human factors into car-following models

Human factors such as distraction, fatigue, alcohol and drug use are generally ignored in car-following (CF) models. Such ignorance overestimates driver capability and leads to most CF models’ inability in realistically explaining human driving behaviors. This paper proposes a novel car-following modeling framework by introducing the difficulty of driving task measured as the dynamic interaction between driving task demand and driver capability. Task difficulty is formulated based on the famous Task Capability Interface (TCI) model, which explains the motivations behind driver’s decision making. The proposed method is applied to enhance two popular CF models: Gipps’ model and IDM, and named as TDGipps and TDIDM respectively. The behavioral soundness of TDGipps and TDIDM are discussed and their stabilities are analyzed. Moreover, the enhanced models are calibrated with the vehicle trajectory data, and validated to explain both regular and human factor influenced CF behavior (which is distraction caused by hand-held mobile phone conversation in this paper). Both the models show better performance than their predecessors, especially in presence of human factors.

A preference-based semantics for CTD reasoning

In [8] the authors developed a logical system based on the definition of a new non-classical connective ⊗ capturing the notion of reparative obligation. The system proved to be appropriate for handling well-known contrary-to-duty paradoxes but no model-theoretic semantics was presented. In this paper we fill the gap and define a suitable possible-world semantics for the system for which we can prove soundness and completeness. The semantics is a preference-based non-normal one extending and generalizing semantics for classical modal logics.

Truth, Proof and Gödelian Arguments : A Defence of Tarskian Truth in Mathematics

One of the most fundamental questions in the philosophy of mathematics concerns the relation between truth and formal proof. The position according to which the two concepts are the same is called deflationism, and the opposing viewpoint substantialism. In an important result of mathematical logic, Kurt Gödel proved in his first incompleteness theorem that all consistent formal systems containing arithmetic include sentences that can neither be proved nor disproved within that system. However, such undecidable Gödel sentences can be established to be true once we expand the formal system with Alfred Tarski s semantical theory of truth, as shown by Stewart Shapiro and Jeffrey Ketland in their semantical arguments for the substantiality of truth. According to them, in Gödel sentences we have an explicit case of true but unprovable sentences, and hence deflationism is refuted. Against that, Neil Tennant has shown that instead of Tarskian truth we can expand the formal system with a soundness principle, according to which all provable sentences are assertable, and the assertability of Gödel sentences follows. This way, the relevant question is not whether we can establish the truth of Gödel sentences, but whether Tarskian truth is a more plausible expansion than a soundness principle. In this work I will argue that this problem is best approached once we think of mathematics as the full human phenomenon, and not just consisting of formal systems. When pre-formal mathematical thinking is included in our account, we see that Tarskian truth is in fact not an expansion at all. I claim that what proof is to formal mathematics, truth is to pre-formal thinking, and the Tarskian account of semantical truth mirrors this relation accurately. However, the introduction of pre-formal mathematics is vulnerable to the deflationist counterargument that while existing in practice, pre-formal thinking could still be philosophically superfluous if it does not refer to anything objective. Against this, I argue that all truly deflationist philosophical theories lead to arbitrariness of mathematics. In all other philosophical accounts of mathematics there is room for a reference of the pre-formal mathematics, and the expansion of Tarkian truth can be made naturally. Hence, if we reject the arbitrariness of mathematics, I argue in this work, we must accept the substantiality of truth. Related subjects such as neo-Fregeanism will also be covered, and shown not to change the need for Tarskian truth. The only remaining route for the deflationist is to change the underlying logic so that our formal languages can include their own truth predicates, which Tarski showed to be impossible for classical first-order languages. With such logics we would have no need to expand the formal systems, and the above argument would fail. From the alternative approaches, in this work I focus mostly on the Independence Friendly (IF) logic of Jaakko Hintikka and Gabriel Sandu. Hintikka has claimed that an IF language can include its own adequate truth predicate. I argue that while this is indeed the case, we cannot recognize the truth predicate as such within the same IF language, and the need for Tarskian truth remains. In addition to IF logic, also second-order logic and Saul Kripke s approach using Kleenean logic will be shown to fail in a similar fashion.

Male traits and herd reproductive capability in tropical beef cattle. 1. Experimental design and animal measures

Research into the genetics of whole herd profitability has been a focus of the Beef Cooperative Research Centre for Beef Genetic Technologies over the past decade and it has been identified that measures of male reproduction may offer a potential indirect means of selecting for improved female reproduction. This paper describes the experimental design and provides a descriptive analysis of an array of male traits in Brahman and Tropical Composite genotypes managed under the medium to high stress, semi-extensive to extensive production systems of northern Australia. A total of 1639 Brahman and 2424 Tropical Composite bulls with known pedigrees, bred and raised in northern Australia, were evaluated for a comprehensive range of productive and reproductive traits. These included blood hormonal traits (luteinising hormone, inhibin and insulin-like growth factor-I); growth and carcass traits (liveweight, body condition score, ultrasound scanned 12-13th rib fat, rump P8 fat, eye muscle area and hip height); adaptation traits (flight time and rectal temperature); and a bull breeding soundness evaluation (leg and hoof conformation, sheath score, length of everted prepuce, penile anatomy, scrotal circumference, semen mass activity, sperm motility and sperm morphology). Large phenotypic variation was evident for most traits, with complete overlap between genotypes, indicating that there is likely to be a significant opportunity to improve bull fertility traits through management and bull selection.

Male traits and herd reproductive capability in tropical beef cattle. 2. Genetic parameters of bull traits

A total of 4063 young bulls of two tropical genotypes (1639 Brahman and 2424 Tropical Composite) raised in northern Australia were evaluated for a comprehensive range of production and reproduction traits up to 24 months of age. Prior to weaning, peripheral blood concentrations of luteinising hormone (LH) and inhibin were measured at 4 months of age. At weaning (6 months) blood insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-I) and flight time were recorded. Body composition traits of fat depth and eye-muscle area were determined by ultrasonography at 15 months of age when additional measurements of liveweight, hip height and body condition score were recorded. Bull breeding soundness was evaluated at similar to 12, 18 and 24 months of age when measurements of scrotal circumference, sheath score, semen mass activity, progressive motility of individual sperm and percent morphologically normal sperm were recorded. Magnitude of heritability and genetic correlations changed across time for some traits. Heritability of LH, inhibin, IGF-I and of 18-month scrotal circumference, mass activity, progressive motility and percent normal sperm was 0.31, 0.74, 0.44, 0.75, 0.24, 0.15 and 0.25, respectively, for Brahmans and 0.48, 0.72, 0.36, 0.43, 0.13, 0.15 and 0.20, respectively, for Tropical Composites. Inhibin and IGF-I had moderate genetic association with percent normal sperm at 24 months in Brahmans but low to negligible associations in Tropical Composites. Body condition score in Brahmans and sperm motility (mass and individual) traits in both genotypes had moderate to strong genetic correlation with percent normal sperm and may prove useful candidates for indirect selection. There is scope to increase scrotal circumference by selection and this will be associated with favourable correlated responses of improved semen quality in both genotypes. The lack of genetic antagonism among bull traits indicates that selection for improved semen quality will not adversely affect other production traits.

The integrity of sperm chromatin in young tropical composite bulls

Sperm chromatin fragmentation is associated with subfertility, but its relationship with age progression in young bulls is poorly understood. The objective was to assess sperm chromatin fragmentation during the early post-pubertal development of 20 tropical composite bulls, using a sperm chromatin structure assay (SCSA) and sperm-bos-halomax (SBH). Bulls were subjected to bull breeding soundness evaluation (BBSE) at mean ages of 13, 18, and 24 mo. Traits measured included liveweight (WT), body condition score (BCS) and scrotal circumference (SC). Semen samples were collected by electroejaculation and assessed for mass activity (MA), motility (Mot), concentration (conc), sperm morphology and chromatin fragmentation. Concentration (r = 0.34, P = 0.0076), Mot (r = 0.36, P = 0.0041) and percentage of morphologic normal sperm (percent normal sperm (PNS); r = 0.31, P = 0.0132) were positively correlated with age. The percentage of sperm with proximal droplets (PD) was negatively correlated with age (r = -0.28, P = 0.0348), whereas neither SCSA nor SBH results were significantly correlated with age. The percentage of sperm with chromatin fragmentation using SCSA was correlated with PNS (r = -0.53, P < 0.0001), the percentage of sperm with head abnormalities (r = 0.68, P < 0.0001) and the percentage of intact sperm (Int) with SBH (r = -0.26, P = 0.0456). In summary, for assessment of sperm chromatin fragmentation, samples could be equally collected at 13, 18 or 24 mo of age, as results did not vary with age. (c) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Variable-number tandem repeats genotyping used to aid and inform management strategies for a bovine Johne's disease incursion in tropical and subtropical Australia

The application of variable-number tandem repeats (VNTR) genotyping of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis isolates to assist in investigating incidents of bovine Johne’s disease in a low-prevalence region of Australia is described in the current study. Isolates from a response to detection of bovine Johne’s disease in Queensland were compared with strains from national and international sources. The tandem application of mycobacterial interspersed repetitive unit (MIRU) and multilocus short sequence repeats (MLSSR) genotyping identified 2 strains, 1 that infected cattle on multiple properties with trace-forward histories from a common infected property, and 1 genotypically different strain recovered from a single property. The former strain showed an identical genotype to an isolate from India. Neither strain showed a genotypic link to regions of Australia with a higher prevalence of the disease. Genotyping has indicated incursions from 2 independent sources. This intelligence has informed investigations into potential routes of entry and the soundness of ongoing control measures, and supported strategy and policy decisions regarding management of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis incursions for Queensland.

Supporting knowledge-intensive construction management tasks in BIM

The delivery of products and services for construction-based businesses is increasingly becoming knowledge-driven and information-intensive. The proliferation of building information modelling (BIM) has increased business opportunities as well as introduced new challenges for the architectural, engineering and construction and facilities management (AEC/FM) industry. As such, the effective use, sharing and exchange of building life cycle information and knowledge management in building design, construction, maintenance and operation assumes a position of paramount importance. This paper identifies a subset of construction management (CM) relevant knowledge for different design conditions of building components through a critical, comprehensive review of synthesized literature and other information gathering and knowledge acquisition techniques. It then explores how such domain knowledge can be formalized as ontologies and, subsequently, a query vocabulary in order to equip BIM users with the capacity to query digital models of a building for the retrieval of useful and relevant domain-specific information. The formalized construction knowledge is validated through interviews with domain experts in relation to four case study projects. Additionally, retrospective analyses of several design conditions are used to demonstrate the soundness (realism), completeness, and appeal of the knowledge base and query-based reasoning approach in relation to the state-of-the-art tools, Solibri Model Checker and Navisworks. The knowledge engineering process and the methods applied in this research for information representation and retrieval could provide useful mechanisms to leverage BIM in support of a number of knowledge intensive CM/FM tasks and functions.

Hills, dams and forests. Some field observations from the Western Ghats

Man’s attempts to intensify the use of natural resources can often result in the exhaustion of the resource or deterioration of other interacting resources. The single-minded pursuit of the development of the water resources of the rivers of the Western Ghats shows many examples of this view, particularly in the unnecessary destruction of the dwindling forest resources. This destruction may be caused by (i) problems o f rehabilitation, e.g. the Ramanagar settlement of the Kalinadi project (ii) the impact of labourers, e.g. the destruction of evergreen sholas on the Upper Nilgiri plateau (iii) the access to encroachers and poachers, e.g. Panshet and Kalinadi (iv) faulty planning, e.g. Linganamakki and Kalinadi. This destruction of forest cover has had a number of deleterious consequences in (i) worsening the shortages of forest resources, (ii) hastening the siltation of the reservoirs, (iii) ecological imbalances as in the rapid spread ofEupatorium in the Kalinadi project area and (iv) the decimation of biological diversity, as in the great reduction of evergreen forests in the Western Ghats, threatening the survival of lion-tailed macaque and the extinction of grass species,Hubbardia heptaneuron. It is stressed that the only sustainable and therefore true development is environmentally sound development. The interests of the weaker sections of the society often provide a good index of the soundness of the development from an environmental point of view. The planning of the development process with this perspective is a great scientific and technological challenge that must be taken up.

PVU and wave-particle splitting schemes for Euler equations of gas dynamics

A new way of flux-splitting, termed as the wave-particle splitting is presented for developing upwind methods for solving Euler equations of gas dynamics. Based on this splitting, two new upwind methods termed as Acoustic Flux Vector Splitting (AFVS) and Acoustic Flux Difference Splitting (AFDS) methods are developed. A new Boltzmann scheme, which closely resembles the wave-particle splitting, is developed using the kinetic theory of gases. This method, termed as Peculiar Velocity based Upwind (PVU) method, uses the concept of peculiar velocity for upwinding. A special feature of all these methods that the unidirectional and multidirectional parts of the flux vector are treated separately. Extensive computations done using these schemes demonstrate the soundness of the ideas.

Microstructure and mechanical properties of squeeze-cast copper

Demand for cost-effective manufacturing techniques led to the development of near-net-shape processes. Squeeze casting is one such established effort. This process enjoys the combined merits of casting and forging. Squeeze casting imparts soundness comparable to that of wrought products while maintaining isotropic nature. Aluminum alloys and zinc alloys have been successfully processed through squeeze casting, but copper and copper alloys do not seem to have been attempted. Considering the capability of squeeze casting process, it is reasonable to expect properties different from that of conventionally cast copper. This paper presents the details of a systematic investigation wherein optimum process parameters for the squeeze casting of pure copper were established. Microstructure of squeeze-cast copper has been found to be significantly different from that of conventionally cast copper, and the dendrite arm spacing is much smaller. In addition to the room temperature mechanical properties, elevated temperature properties of copper are also appreciably improved by squeeze casting.