1,465 research outputs found
Modelling Probabilistic Wireless Networks
We propose a process calculus to model high level wireless systems, where the
topology of a network is described by a digraph. The calculus enjoys features
which are proper of wireless networks, namely broadcast communication and
probabilistic behaviour. We first focus on the problem of composing wireless
networks, then we present a compositional theory based on a probabilistic
generalisation of the well known may-testing and must-testing pre- orders.
Also, we define an extensional semantics for our calculus, which will be used
to define both simulation and deadlock simulation preorders for wireless
networks. We prove that our simulation preorder is sound with respect to the
may-testing preorder; similarly, the deadlock simulation pre- order is sound
with respect to the must-testing preorder, for a large class of networks. We
also provide a counterexample showing that completeness of the simulation
preorder, with respect to the may testing one, does not hold. We conclude the
paper with an application of our theory to probabilistic routing protocols
Using higher-order contracts to model session types
Session types are used to describe and structure interactions between
independent processes in distributed systems. Higher-order types are needed in
order to properly structure delegation of responsibility between processes.
In this paper we show that higher-order web-service contracts can be used to
provide a fully-abstract model of recursive higher-order session types. The
model is set-theoretic, in the sense that the meaning of a contract is given in
terms of the set of contracts with which it complies.
The proof of full-abstraction depends on a novel notion of the complement of
a contract. This in turn gives rise to an alternative to the type duality
commonly used in systems for type-checking session types. We believe that the
notion of complement captures more faithfully the behavioural intuition
underlying type duality.Comment: Added definitions of m-closed terms, of 'dual', and a discussion to
show the problems of the complement functio
Compositional Reasoning for Explicit Resource Management in Channel-Based Concurrency
We define a pi-calculus variant with a costed semantics where channels are
treated as resources that must explicitly be allocated before they are used and
can be deallocated when no longer required. We use a substructural type system
tracking permission transfer to construct coinductive proof techniques for
comparing behaviour and resource usage efficiency of concurrent processes. We
establish full abstraction results between our coinductive definitions and a
contextual behavioural preorder describing a notion of process efficiency
w.r.t. its management of resources. We also justify these definitions and
respective proof techniques through numerous examples and a case study
comparing two concurrent implementations of an extensible buffer.Comment: 51 pages, 7 figure
Modelling MAC-Layer Communications in Wireless Systems
We present a timed process calculus for modelling wireless networks in which
individual stations broadcast and receive messages; moreover the broadcasts are
subject to collisions. Based on a reduction semantics for the calculus we
define a contextual equivalence to compare the external behaviour of such
wireless networks. Further, we construct an extensional LTS (labelled
transition system) which models the activities of stations that can be directly
observed by the external environment. Standard bisimulations in this LTS
provide a sound proof method for proving systems contextually equivalence. We
illustrate the usefulness of the proof methodology by a series of examples.
Finally we show that this proof method is also complete, for a large class of
systems
Optimal loading of hydrogel-based drug-delivery systems
Drug-loaded hydrogels provide a means to deliver pharmaceutical agents to
specific sites within the body at a controlled rate. The aim of this paper is
to understand how controlled drug release can be achieved by tuning the initial
distribution of drug molecules in a hydrogel. A mathematical model is presented
for a spherical drug-loaded hydrogel. The model captures the nonlinear
elasticity of the polymer network and thermodynamics of swelling. By assuming
that the drug molecules are dilute, the equations for hydrogel swelling and
drug transport partially decouple. A fast optimisation method is developed to
accurately compute the optimal initial drug concentration by minimising the
error between the numerical drug-release profile and a target profile. By
taking the target drug efflux to be piecewise constant, the optimal initial
configuration consists of a central drug-loaded core with isolated drug packets
near the free boundary of the hydrogel. The optimal initial drug concentration
is highly effective at mitigating the burst effect, where a large amount of
drug is rapidly released into the environment. The hydrogel stiffness can be
used to further tune the rate of drug release. Although stiffer gels lead to
less swelling and hence reduce the drug diffusivity, the drug-release kinetics
are faster than for soft gels due to the decreased distance that drug molecules
must travel to reach the free surface
Investigating the Effects of Header Display Formats on Reading Webpages
This thesis investigated the influence of format (static vs. dynamic) and relevance (relevant vs. not relevant) on the creation of effective Web site header displays. Through evaluation of current trends in header display design, the aim of this research was to offer plausible explanatory mechanisms within the perceptual and visual systems, along with practical recommendations for both users and designers alike. While presenting 100 undergraduate students with simplified Web page interfaces containing only a header and paragraph text, looking time was measured followed by score on a set of text-comprehension questions. Score was then considered as a function of header characteristics such as format and relevance. Results revealed a negative relationship between scores in the relevant and not relevant conditions, suggesting an influence of header relevance on subsequent text-comprehension
The Stefan problem with variable thermophysical properties and phase change temperature
In this paper we formulate a Stefan problem appropriate when the
thermophysical properties are distinct in each phase and the phase-change
temperature is size or velocity dependent. Thermophysical properties invariably
take different values in different material phases but this is often ignored
for mathematical simplicity. Size and velocity dependent phase change
temperatures are often found at very short length scales, such as nanoparticle
melting or dendrite formation; velocity dependence occurs in the solidification
of supercooled melts. To illustrate the method we show how the governing
equations may be applied to a standard one-dimensional problem and also the
melting of a spherically symmetric nanoparticle. Errors which have propagated
through the literature are highlighted. By writing the system in
non-dimensional form we are able to study the large Stefan number formulation
and an energy-conserving one-phase reduction. The results from the various
simplifications and assumptions are compared with those from a finite
difference numerical scheme. Finally, we briefly discuss the failure of
Fourier's law at very small length and time-scales and provide an alternative
formulation which takes into account the finite time of travel of heat carriers
(phonons) and the mean free distance between collisions.Comment: 39 pages, 5 figure
The one-dimensional Stefan problem with non-Fourier heat conduction
We investigate the one-dimensional growth of a solid into a liquid bath,
starting from a small crystal, using the Guyer-Krumhansl and Maxwell-Cattaneo
models of heat conduction. By breaking the solidification process into the
relevant time regimes we are able to reduce the problem to a system of two
coupled ordinary differential equations describing the evolution of the
solid-liquid interface and the heat flux. The reduced formulation is in good
agreement with numerical simulations. In the case of silicon, differences
between classical and non-classical solidification kinetics are relatively
small, but larger deviations can be observed in the evolution in time of the
heat flux through the growing solid. From this study we conclude that the heat
flux provides more information about the presence of non-classical modes of
heat transport during phase-change processes.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables + Supplementary Materia
A theory for observational fault tolerance
In general, faults cannot be prevented; instead, they need to be tolerated to guarantee certain degrees of software dependability. We develop a theory for fault tolerance for a distributed pi-calculus, whereby locations act as units of failure and redundancy is distributed across independently failing locations. We give formal definitions for fault tolerant programs in our calculus, based on the well studied notion of contextual equivalence. We then develop bisimulation proof techniques to verify fault tolerance properties of distributed programs and show they are sound with respect to our definitions for fault tolerance.peer-reviewe
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