Proceedings of SUMo and CompoNet 2011

International audienc

Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines

In 2001 the federal Department of Justice identified the need for a project to explore the possibility of developing some form of advisory spousal support guidelines. The aim of the project was to bring more certainty and predictability to the determination of spousal support under the Divorce Act.1 The project was a response to growing concerns expressed by lawyers, judges, mediators and the public about the lack of certainty and predictability in the current law of spousal support, creating daily dilemmas in advising clients, and negotiating, litigating or—in the case of judges—deciding spousal support issues. We were retained to direct that project. In January 2005, the Draft Proposal was released, setting out a comprehensive set of Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines. These Advisory Guidelines have been used by spouses, lawyers, mediators and judges across Canada over the past three years. We received detailed comments and feedback on the Draft Proposal. What you hold in your hands is the final version of the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines. It is the revised version of the earlier Draft Proposal and is now the authoritative document on the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines. The Draft Proposal is now only of historical interest. The term “guidelines” inevitably brings to mind the Federal Child Support Guidelines, enacted in 1997.2 We need to emphasize at the beginning that this comparison must be resisted. This project does not involve formal, legislative reform. Unlike the federal, provincial and territorial child support guidelines, these Advisory Guidelines are not legislated. They are instead intended to be informal guidelines that operate on an advisory basis only, within the existing legislative framework. They do not have the binding force of law and are applied only to the extent that lawyers and judges find them useful. They are guidelines in the true sense of the word. We have called them Advisory Guidelines to differentiate them from the child support guidelines

Petri Net Simulation of Computer Communications Systems

This thesis presents the design of a simulation method for computer networking systems using timed Petri Nets along with the development of a simulation program based on this method. The use of this simulation program to evaluate the performance of a number of communications systems is described and its suitability as a general-purpose performance evaluation tool for networking systems is discussed. The development of the simulation method arose from the installation within Glasgow Royal Infirmary of a communications network for the transmission of digitised electrocardiograms. This was part of an ongoing project to develop a program for the automatic analysis of electrocardiograms by computer. The networking methodology currently in use on this network was developed using the simulation program. The aim in designing the simulator was to develop a tool which would be of use in simulating as wide a range of systems as possible and to this end a class of Petri net was developed which had a wide range of simulation capabilities, it was further intended that any extensions to the "Classical" Place/Transition net model should be made in such a way that the simplicity of the original model was preserved in as large a measure as possible. During the course of this work, various extensions to the basic Place/Transition net model were indeed made in order to increase the power of the simulation program. Some of these extensions are believed to be unique to the present program, in particular the use of a timed-place scheme. Most current work on timed Petri nets concentrates on timed-transition models as these are easier to implement and analyse; this thesis seeks to show that a timed-place model is viable as a simulation tool and is in many ways preferable to the timed-transition model. To test the range of the simulator, two extra simulation experiments were undertaken in addition to the simulation of the Royal Infirmary network, the first being the evaluation of a simple queueing system and the second the simulation of an Ethernet network. The simulation of the Ethernet network also tested the capability of the timed-place model to handle stochastic Petri net simulations, a type of simulation which is being used increasingly to model computer and networking systems and which is currently dominated by timed-transition models. Descriptions of all three simulation projects are presented along with an analysis of the results of each

Computing multi-scale organizations built through assembly

The ability to generate and control assembling structures built over many orders of magnitude is an unsolved challenge of engineering and science. Many of the presumed transformational benefits of nanotechnology and robotics are based directly on this capability. There are still significant theoretical difficulties associated with building such systems, though technology is rapidly ensuring that the tools needed are becoming available in chemical, electronic, and robotic domains. In this thesis a simulated, general-purpose computational prototype is developed which is capable of unlimited assembly and controlled by external input, as well as an additional prototype which, in structures, can emulate any other computing device. These devices are entirely finite-state and distributed in operation. Because of these properties and the unique ability to form unlimited size structures of unlimited computational power, the prototypes represent a novel and useful blueprint on which to base scalable assembly in other domains. A new assembling model of Computational Organization and Regulation over Assembly Levels (CORAL) is also introduced, providing the necessary framework for this investigation. The strict constraints of the CORAL model allow only an assembling unit of a single type, distributed control, and ensure that units cannot be reprogrammed - all reprogramming is done via assembly. Multiple units are instead structured into aggregate computational devices using a procedural or developmental approach. Well-defined comparison of computational power between levels of organization is ensured by the structure of the model. By eliminating ambiguity, the CORAL model provides a pragmatic answer to open questions regarding a framework for hierarchical organization. Finally, a comparison between the designed prototypes and units evolved using evolutionary algorithms is presented as a platform for further research into novel scalable assembly. Evolved units are capable of recursive pairing ability under the control of a signal, a primitive form of unlimited assembly, and do so via symmetry-breaking operations at each step. Heuristic evidence for a required minimal threshold of complexity is provided by the results, and challenges and limitations of the approach are identified for future evolutionary studies

Modelo de sistema a eventos discretos aplicado a operações de lógica em dispositivos eletrônicos inteligentes

A necessidade do estudo e compreensão dos Sistemas a Eventos Discretos vem se tornando cada vez maior com o avanço da tecnologia mundial. Para estudar esses sistemas, são utilizadas diferentes técnicas de análise, como autômatos, redes de Petri ou cadeias de Markov. Com o objetivo de fornecer uma visão geral sobre o assunto e aplicar um dos métodos de análise, foram apresentados os principais conceitos e operações para compreensão do tema, bem como um estudo de caso, que envolve a operação de três dispositivos eletrônicos inteligentes (IEDs) utilizados para proteção e lógica de chaveamento automático de fontes em um painel de baixa tensão localizado na planta PE4 da Braskem. Através dos métodos de compreensão-modelo-verificação e do uso de software PIPE, chegou-se a um modelo final de rede hierárquica, contendo as duas camadas de aplicação. Ao final, concluiu-se que a metodologia utilizada oferece um suporte adequado para o estudo de caso proposto e que os requisitos de funcionamento foram atendidos. Também foram propostos possíveis trabalhos para continuação da pesquisa no tema.The need for study and understanding Discrete Event Systems has been increasing with the advancement of world technology. To study these systems, diferente analysis techniques are used, such as automata, Petri nets or Markov chains. In order to provide an overview of the subject and apply one of the methods of analysis, the main concepts and operations to understand the topic were presented, as well as case study, which involves the operation of three intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) used for protection and logic operation of automatic source switching of a low voltage panel located as Braskem’s PE4 plant. Through the methods of comprehension-model-verification and the use of PIPE software, a final model of hierarchical Petri net was obtained, containing the two application layers. At the end, it was concluded that the methodology used offers an adequate support for the proposed case study and that the operating requirements were met. Possible future studies were also proposed for further research on the topic

Seattle, Rhetorical Velocity, Identity Shift, Transnational Politics, and Materiality: Watching Rhetoric Bleed

Seattle, Rhetorical Velocity, Identity Shift, Transnational Politics, and Materiality: Watching Rhetoric Bleed examines how the writings of Zapatista spokesperson Subcomandante Marcos shaped the philosophical underpinnings of the overall 1999 WTO protests, and more specifically, the philosophical underpinnings and the physical experience of one protest group in particular: the Mechistas of Washington State

Distributed Simulation of High-Level Algebraic Petri Nets

In the field of Petri nets, simulation is an essential tool to validate and evaluate models. Conventional simulation techniques, designed for their use in sequential computers, are too slow if the system to simulate is large or complex. The aim of this work is to search for techniques to accelerate simulations exploiting the parallelism available in current, commercial multicomputers, and to use these techniques to study a class of Petri nets called high-level algebraic nets. These nets exploit the rich theory of algebraic specifications for high-level Petri nets: Petri nets gain a great deal of modelling power by representing dynamically changing items as structured tokens whereas algebraic specifications turned out to be an adequate and flexible instrument for handling structured items. In this work we focus on ECATNets (Extended Concurrent Algebraic Term Nets) whose most distinctive feature is their semantics which is defined in terms of rewriting logic. Nevertheless, ECATNets have two drawbacks: the occultation of the aspect of time and a bad exploitation of the parallelism inherent in the models. Three distributed simulation techniques have been considered: asynchronous conservative, asynchronous optimistic and synchronous. These algorithms have been implemented in a multicomputer environment: a network of workstations. The influence that factors such as the characteristics of the simulated models, the organisation of the simulators and the characteristics of the target multicomputer have in the performance of the simulations have been measured and characterised. It is concluded that synchronous distributed simulation techniques are not suitable for the considered kind of models, although they may provide good performance in other environments. Conservative and optimistic distributed simulation techniques perform well, specially if the model to simulate is complex or large - precisely the worst case for traditional, sequential simulators. This way, studies previously considered as unrealisable, due to their exceedingly high computational cost, can be performed in reasonable times. Additionally, the spectrum of possibilities of using multicomputers can be broadened to execute more than numeric applications

Transitions in teacher education and professional identities: proceedings

The University of Minho, Braga, Portugal, was the host for the 2014 Annual Conference of the Association for Teacher Education in Europe (ATEE), which took place in August, from the 25th to the 27th. The Conference focused on Transitions in Teacher Education and Professional Identities looked at the transitions in teacher education and analysed different experiences in professional identity of (student) teachers from an international perspective. Three keywords may be identified: challenges in teaching, dilemmas in teacher education and in teacher educators’ role and current trends that are shaping teacher education in different contexts. Similar dilemmas and even contradictions have been identified in different settings with different modes of government intervention in teacher education in which content, structure and duration are also diverse but with similar features. Another key theme discussed at the Conference was the complexity of the concept of identity and also the contested nature of the transitions: transitions for what? How? Why? These transitions and shifts in teacher education and professional identities need to be examined within the context of current policies but also in the light of the complexities and contradictions of teaching as a profession. Teacher educators are also facing transitions in teacher education curricula but also regarding their own identities. These are complex processes that may include resistance and turbulence because transitions may be troublesome for many reasons. In this regard context and language matter but also the kinds of policies and practices that exist within teacher education. There are questions that remain unanswered. However, despite the differences, the dilemmas, and even the contradictions, teacher education can make a difference in professional identity development as was the case of successful experiences that have been described in the Conference