Towards formal specification of a distributed computing system

Onboard spacecraft computing system is a case of a functionally distributed system that requires continuous interaction among the nodes to control the operations at different nodes. A simple and reliable protocol is desired for such an application. This paper discusses a formal approach to specify the computing system with respect to some important issues encountered in the design and development of a protocol for the onboard distributed system. The issues considered in this paper are concurrency, exclusiveness and sequencing relationships among the various processes at different nodes. A 6-tuple model is developed for the precise specification of the system. The model also enables us to check the consistency of specification and deadlock caused due to improper specification. An example is given to illustrate the use of the proposed methodology for a typical spacecraft configuration. Although the theory is motivated by a specific application the same may be applied to other distributed computing system such as those encountered in process control industries, power plant control and other similar environments.

Tieteellinen ajattelu yliopisto-opinnoissa : haastattelututkimus psykologian, teologian ja farmasian opiskelijoista

The aim of this dissertation is to explore the academic thinking and personal epistemology of university students. More specifically, the aim is to understand and promote students’ research and academic skills as a central goal of academic studies in the research-intensive university of Helsinki. Two of the four studies examine the personal epistemology of psychology students in different study phases, and the variation in personal epistemology among final-year psychology, theology and pharmacy students. Furthermore, personal epistemology was explored as a phenomenon among the student groups. In the fourth study the individual answers of the students interviewed are investigated in more detail. The main focus is on examining students’ beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowledge acquisition as a representation of their personal epistemology. Study I presents a model which describes the main elements and aspects of teaching and learning in pharmacy education. Firstly, the meaning of quality of teaching and learning is explored. On the basis of this information, the study concentrates on the pedagogical implications of changing pharmacy teaching to improve the quality of learning. Study II describes the results of a cross-sectional study of psychology students participating in undergraduate and master’s level psychology programmes. The students (N = 53) were interviewed concerning their beliefs about knowledge and knowing, the aim being to explore students’ responses about thinking and reasoning. The results are analysed using content analysis to create categories of personal epistemology and comparisons among the students according to the phase of their studies. Study III examines interdisciplinary differences in final-year psychology, pharmacy and theology students’ (N = 52) academic thinking and personal epistemology. The aims of study IV are to examine and compare the consistency of personal epistemology profiles among university students (N = 87) representing three academic disciplines. The individual answers are examined and rated on a scale from absolutist to evaluativist thinking. On the basis of this data, three personal epistemology profiles are identified: a) absolutist profiles; b) relativistic profiles; and c) evaluativist profiles consisting of the subgroups entitled “limited” and “sophisticated”. The results of the studies clearly demonstrate that personal epistemology varies between students in different age groups, study phases, and disciplines. Three categories, including several subcategories, emerge to describe the personal epistemology of students. Furthermore, three personal epistemology profiles can be identified from the data. The comparison between students reveals interesting differences and similarities among student groups, and developmental trends of personal epistemology.

How CBO Forecasts Income

[Excerpt] Because federal receipts are determined to a great extent by taxes collected on individual and business income, this background paper focuses on how CBO projects income earned by individuals and businesses. It concentrates primarily on CBO's methodology as it pertains to those categories of individual and business income that are encompassed within the framework of the national income and product accounts, or NIPAs (see Appendix A for explanations). Using that framework for projecting income helps to ensure consistency with CBO's projections of the overall economy.

The role of aesthetic style in the visual communication of climate change

Public apathy on the issue of Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC) is widespread, with more than half of surveyed Australians and Britons in denial of the phenomenon. While much is known about media influences and strategies such as message framing, there is little in the way of research on the impact of designed visual communication. This study builds knowledge and challenges assumptions by employing a relational approach between ACC visual communications, the professionals producing them, and the members of society that these communications are attempting to influence, contributing knowledge to the fields of graphic design, science communication and social science.

A consensus genetic map of sorghum that integrates multiple component maps and high-throughput Diversity Array Technology (DArT) markers

Background: Sorghum genome mapping based on DNA markers began in the early 1990s and numerous genetic linkage maps of sorghum have been published in the last decade, based initially on RFLP markers with more recent maps including AFLPs and SSRs and very recently, Diversity Array Technology (DArT) markers. It is essential to integrate the rapidly growing body of genetic linkage data produced through DArT with the multiple genetic linkage maps for sorghum generated through other marker technologies. Here, we report on the colinearity of six independent sorghum component maps and on the integration of these component maps into a single reference resource that contains commonly utilized SSRs, AFLPs, and high-throughput DArT markers. Results: The six component maps were constructed using the MultiPoint software. The lengths of the resulting maps varied between 910 and 1528 cM. The order of the 498 markers that segregated in more than one population was highly consistent between the six individual mapping data sets. The framework consensus map was constructed using a "Neighbours" approach and contained 251 integrated bridge markers on the 10 sorghum chromosomes spanning 1355.4 cM with an average density of one marker every 5.4 cM, and were used for the projection of the remaining markers. In total, the sorghum consensus map consisted of a total of 1997 markers mapped to 2029 unique loci ( 1190 DArT loci and 839 other loci) spanning 1603.5 cM and with an average marker density of 1 marker/0.79 cM. In addition, 35 multicopy markers were identified. On average, each chromosome on the consensus map contained 203 markers of which 58.6% were DArT markers. Non-random patterns of DNA marker distribution were observed, with some clear marker-dense regions and some marker-rare regions. Conclusion: The final consensus map has allowed us to map a larger number of markers than possible in any individual map, to obtain a more complete coverage of the sorghum genome and to fill a number of gaps on individual maps. In addition to overall general consistency of marker order across individual component maps, good agreement in overall distances between common marker pairs across the component maps used in this study was determined, using a difference ratio calculation. The obtained consensus map can be used as a reference resource for genetic studies in different genetic backgrounds, in addition to providing a framework for transferring genetic information between different marker technologies and for integrating DArT markers with other genomic resources. DArT markers represent an affordable, high throughput marker system with great utility in molecular breeding programs, especially in crops such as sorghum where SNP arrays are not publicly available.

Kouluvalinta vai koulun valinta? : Oppilaiden valikoituminen yläkouluihin Espoossa keväällä 2006

Changes in governance in the public sector made it possible to give the power to the level of service production. In Finland schools were diversified. They wanted to be as attractive as possible. In her dissertation (2006) Piia Seppänen studied parental choice and schools choice policies in Espoo, in Kuopio, in Lahti, inTurku and in some levels in Helsinki too. After her study was done there has been some changes in school choise policy in Espoo. The catchments areas changed radically; earlier every school did have its own catchment area. But now three or even five school has the same catchment area. On the base of the Seppänen’s dissertation I wondered who’s choice it really were? Is the choice maker customer or producer of the service? In my study I tried to understand those processes where pupils were selected for the 7th grade in lower secondary schools in the spring in 2006. To make the picture clear, I have to study the history of pupil selection and the changes of it in the 21st century. I also have to study the geography of the town which is quite special in comparison with the normal cities with one central area. This has its own effects on the pupil selection system as well as in the whole study. In my study I try to present what kind of process the pupil selection is in Espoo and how it was done actually in the spring of 2006. The empirical data of my study were statistical data, documents of different kind, conversations with principals, local authorities and politicians. I also interviewed one politician and observed a few information meetings about the pupil selection process. Based on this large variety of data I tried to draw a picture of the way of speaking (writing) about the ability of the choice. Furthermore, how this pupil selection is done in reality. The ability to apply to special instruction in f. e. music, graphic arts or maths and sciences or to language based instruction (bilingual and immersion teaching) depends on the district you live. Because there is one catchment area which has no special or language based instruction available. Also the poor public transport system might have some effects on the parental choice. According to my study, 20 % of the 7th grade pupils were selected with criteria of different kind to special classes. Because the ability to get special or language based instruction depends on your district, there is a big risk for a selection based on the pupils' socio-economic background.

On anomalous U(1) gauge theory in four dimensions

We discuss the consistency, unitarity and Lorentz invariance of an anomalous U(1) gauge theory in four dimensions. Our analysis is based on an effective low-energy action valid in the chiral symmetry broken phase. The allegedly bad properties of anomalous theories (except non-renormalizability) are examined. It is shown that, in the low-energy context, the theory can be consistently and unitarily quantised, and is formally Lorentz covariant.

Kadonneet pojat : Monitapaustutkimus ESY-poikien kompleksisesta koulu-urasta ja elämänkulusta

Lost boys. A multiple case study of the complex school career and life-course of male students who have attended special classes for the emotionally and behaviourally maladjusted The purpose of this thesis is to describe the school career and the life-course of eight former special-class students from the comprehensive school to their further education and into adulthood. The members of the target group have been students of special classes for pupils with emotional and behavioural difficulties in southern Finland. The interviews were made 1994-1997 at school and for follow-up interviews 2002-2003, when the participants were already adults. Six mothers were also interviewed. The qualitative data was gathered using individual interviews and Adult Attachment Interview. The aim was to explore the life-histories of subjects from early childhood to early adulthood. Information was gathered also from the documents concerning the students´ school attendance. Every single life-history is illustrated as a life-course graphic. The data has been analysed using different frames of reference and combining different theories. In addition to theories considering developmental risk factors and protective factors, the data is considered using theories of control over life, attribution, self-efficacy and identity and attitudes towards education. The experiential living mode of the students has been studied, as well. The results of this study show that the frames of references which are used complement each other. The target students clustered identically in spite of the frames of reference. As a result, the study has illustrated the same phenomenon from different points of view. The results of the study consist of three types of school careers: The winding career, the vicious circle career and the straight career. The three careers differ from each other in developmental risk and protective factors and post-school life-courses of the students. The type of childhood families and especially the fathers´ attention to the school education as well as the free time of their sons was important. Keywords: Pupils with emotional and behavioural difficulties, maladjustment to school, life-course, identity

Implementation of parallel tridiagonal solvers for a heterogeneous computing environment

Tridiagonal diagonally dominant linear systems arise in many scientific and engineering applications. The standard Thomas algorithm for solving such systems is inherently serial forming a bottleneck in computation. Algorithms such as cyclic reduction and SPIKE reduce a single large tridiagonal system into multiple small independent systems which can be solved in parallel. We have developed portable cyclic reduction and SPIKE algorithm OpenCL implementations with the intent to target a range of co-processors in a heterogeneous computing environment including Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and other multi-core processors. In this paper, we evaluate these designs in the context of solver performance, resource efficiency and numerical accuracy.

Duty and Control in Intermediary Copyright Liability: An Australian Perspective

In the internet age, copyright owners are increasingly looking to online intermediaries to take steps to prevent copyright infringement. Sometimes these intermediaries are closely tied to the acts of infringement; sometimes – as in the case of ISPs – they are not. In 2012, the Australian High Court decided the Roadshow Films v iiNet case, in which it held that an Australian ISP was not liable under copyright’s authorization doctrine, which asks whether the intermediary has sanctioned, approved or countenanced the infringement. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 directs a court to consider, in these situations, whether the intermediary had the power to prevent the infringement and whether it took any reasonable steps to prevent or avoid the infringement. It is generally not difficult for a court to find the power to prevent infringement – power to prevent can include an unrefined technical ability to disconnect users from the copyright source, such as an ISP terminating users’ internet accounts. In the iiNet case, the High Court eschewed this broad approach in favor of focusing on a notion of control that was influenced by principles of tort law. In tort, when a plaintiff asserts that a defendant should be liable for failing to act to prevent harm caused to the plaintiff by a third party, there is a heavy burden on the plaintiff to show that the defendant had a duty to act. The duty must be clear and specific, and will often hinge on the degree of control that the defendant was able to exercise over the third party. Control in these circumstances relates directly to control over the third party’s actions in inflicting the harm. Thus, in iiNet’s case, the control would need to be directed to the third party’s infringing use of BitTorrent; control over a person’s ability to access the internet is too imprecise. Further, when considering omissions to act, tort law differentiates between the ability to control and the ability to hinder. The ability to control may establish a duty to act, and the court will then look to small measures taken to prevent the harm to determine whether these satisfy the duty. But the ability to hinder will not suffice to establish liability in the absence of control. This chapter argues that an inquiry grounded in control as defined in tort law would provide a more principled framework for assessing the liability of passive intermediaries in copyright. In particular, it would set a higher, more stable benchmark for determining the copyright liability of passive intermediaries, based on the degree of actual, direct control that the intermediary can exercise over the infringing actions of its users. This approach would provide greater clarity and consistency than has existed to date in this area of copyright law in Australia.

Refined Global Analysis of Bemisia tabaci (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha: Aleyrodoidea: Aleyrodidae) Mitochondrial Cytochrome Oxidase 1 to Identify Species Level Genetic Boundaries.

Identifying species boundaries within morphologically indistinguishable cryptic species complexes is often contentious. For the whitefly Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha: Aleyrodoidea: Aleyrodidae), the lack of a clear understanding about the genetic limits of the numerous genetic groups and biotypes so far identified has resulted in a lack of consistency in the application of the terms, the approaches use to apply them and in our understanding of what genetic structure within B. tabaci means. Our response has been to use mitochondrial gene cytochrome oxidase one to consider how to clearly and consistently define genetic separation. Using Bayesian phylogenetic analysis and analysis of sequence pairwise divergence we found a considerably higher to number of genetic groups than had been previously determined with two breaks in the distribution, one at 11% and another at 3.5%. At >11% divergence, 11 distinct groups were resolved, whereas at >3.5% divergence 24 groups were identified. Consensus sequences for each of these groups were determined and were shown to be useful in the correct assignment of sequences of unknown origin. The 3.5% divergence bound is consistent with species level separations in other insect taxa and Suggests that B. tabaci is it cryptic species composed of at least 24 distinct species. We further show that the placement of Bemesia atriplex (Froggatt) within the B. tabaci in, group adds further weight to the argument for species level separation within B. tabaci. This new analysis, which constructs consensus sequences and uses these its a standard against which unknown sequences call be compared, provides for the first time it consistent means of identifying the genetic hounds of each species with it high degree of certainty.

Guidance for addressing the Australian Weed Risk Assessment questions

This paper provides guidance on how to address the 49 questions of the Australian Weed Risk Assessment (WRA) system. The WRA was developed in Australia in 1999, and has since been widely adapted for different regions. As interest in implementation and results comparison has increased, the issue of consistency in answering and scoring the questions has become important. As a result, this guidance was developed during the 2007 International WRA Workshop. Suggestions on search methods, data sources and examples are also provided.

Comparative performance of Corymbia hybrids and parental species in subtropical Queensland and implications for breeding and deployment.

Eighty six full-sib Corymbia F1 hybrid families (crosses between C. torelliana and four spotted gum taxa: C. citriodora subsp. variegata, C. citriodora subsp. citriodora, C. henryi and C. maculata), were planted in six trials across six disparate sites in south-eastern Queensland to evaluate their productivity and determine their potential utility for plantation forestry. In each trial, the best-growing 20% of hybrid families grew significantly faster (P=0.05) than open-pollinated seedlots of the parent species Corymbia citriodora subsp. variegata, ranging from 107% to 181% and 127% to 287% of the height and diameter respectively. Relative performance of hybrid families growing on more than one site displayed consistency in ranking for growth across sites and analysis showed low genotype-by-environment interaction. Heritability estimates based on female and male parents across two sites at age six years for height and diameter at breast height, were high (0.62±0.28 to 0.64±0.35 and 0.31±0.21 to 0.69±0.37 respectively), and low to moderate (0.03±0.04 to 0.33±0.22) for stem straightness, branch size, incidence of ramicorns, and frost and disease resistance traits at ages one to three years. The proportion of dominance variance for height and diameter had reduced to zero by age six years. Based on these promising results, further breeding and pilot-scale family forestry and clonal forestry deployment is being undertaken. These results have also provided insights regarding the choice of a future hybrid breeding strategy.

An interactive graphics system for 2-D drawing and design

This paper is about a software system, GRASS-Graphic Software System for 2-D drawing and design—which has been implemented on a PDP-11/35 system with RSX-11M operating system. It is a low cost interactive graphics system for the design of two dimensional drawings and uses a minimum of hardware. It provides comprehensive facilities for creating, editing, storing and retrieving pictures. It has been implemented in the language Pascal and has the potential to be used as a powerful data-imputting tool for a design-automation system. The important features of the system are its low cost, software character generation and a user-trainable character recognizer, which has been included.

On the axiomatic approach to the maximum entropy principle of inference

Recent axiomatic derivations of the maximum entropy principle from consistency conditions are critically examined. We show that proper application of consistency conditions alone allows a wider class of functionals, essentially of the form ∝ dx p(x)[p(x)/g(x)] s , for some real numbers, to be used for inductive inference and the commonly used form − ∝ dx p(x)ln[p(x)/g(x)] is only a particular case. The role of the prior densityg(x) is clarified. It is possible to regard it as a geometric factor, describing the coordinate system used and it does not represent information of the same kind as obtained by measurements on the system in the form of expectation values.