36,229 research outputs found
LCOGT Network Observatory Operations
We describe the operational capabilities of the Las Cumbres Observatory
Global Telescope Network. We summarize our hardware and software for
maintaining and monitoring network health. We focus on methodologies to utilize
the automated system to monitor availability of sites, instruments and
telescopes, to monitor performance, permit automatic recovery, and provide
automatic error reporting. The same jTCS control system is used on telescopes
of apertures 0.4m, 0.8m, 1m and 2m, and for multiple instruments on each. We
describe our network operational model, including workloads, and illustrate our
current tools, and operational performance indicators, including telemetry and
metrics reporting from on-site reductions. The system was conceived and
designed to establish effective, reliable autonomous operations, with automatic
monitoring and recovery - minimizing human intervention while maintaining
quality. We illustrate how far we have been able to achieve that.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figure
The AutoProof Verifier: Usability by Non-Experts and on Standard Code
Formal verification tools are often developed by experts for experts; as a
result, their usability by programmers with little formal methods experience
may be severely limited. In this paper, we discuss this general phenomenon with
reference to AutoProof: a tool that can verify the full functional correctness
of object-oriented software. In particular, we present our experiences of using
AutoProof in two contrasting contexts representative of non-expert usage.
First, we discuss its usability by students in a graduate course on software
verification, who were tasked with verifying implementations of various sorting
algorithms. Second, we evaluate its usability in verifying code developed for
programming assignments of an undergraduate course. The first scenario
represents usability by serious non-experts; the second represents usability on
"standard code", developed without full functional verification in mind. We
report our experiences and lessons learnt, from which we derive some general
suggestions for furthering the development of verification tools with respect
to improving their usability.Comment: In Proceedings F-IDE 2015, arXiv:1508.0338
Investigation into the impact of integral suppressor configurations on the pressure levels within the suppressor
This paper reports on an experimental investigation supported by basic modeling in to the performance of an integral suppressor on a low power firearm. A model was developed to determine the pressure within a suppressor chamber using iterative empirical calculations of the gas properties and flow within the system. The design of a reconfigurable suppressor chamber has been undertaken allowing suppressor chamber volume to be varied through the use of baffles. Pressure transducers were used to determine the pressure within the suppressor chamber for a series of firings. The results of the firings with different configurations within the suppressor are presented allowing trends to be established. The modeling and experimental results show an increase in suppressor chamber volume results in a reduction of recorded pressure within the suppressor chamber
Making the Distribution Subsystem Secure
This report presents how the Distribution Subsystem is made secure. A set of different security threats to a shared data programming system are identifed. The report presents the extensions nessesary to the DSS in order to cope with the identified security threats by maintaining reference security. A reference to a shared data structure cannot be forged or guessed; only by proper delegation can a thread acquire access to data originating at remote processes. Referential security is a requirement for secure distributed applications. By programmatically restricting access to distributed data to trusted nodes, a distributed application can be made secure. However, for this to be true, referential security must be supported on the level of the implementation
Sciunits: Reusable Research Objects
Science is conducted collaboratively, often requiring knowledge sharing about
computational experiments. When experiments include only datasets, they can be
shared using Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) or Digital Object Identifiers
(DOIs). An experiment, however, seldom includes only datasets, but more often
includes software, its past execution, provenance, and associated
documentation. The Research Object has recently emerged as a comprehensive and
systematic method for aggregation and identification of diverse elements of
computational experiments. While a necessary method, mere aggregation is not
sufficient for the sharing of computational experiments. Other users must be
able to easily recompute on these shared research objects. In this paper, we
present the sciunit, a reusable research object in which aggregated content is
recomputable. We describe a Git-like client that efficiently creates, stores,
and repeats sciunits. We show through analysis that sciunits repeat
computational experiments with minimal storage and processing overhead.
Finally, we provide an overview of sharing and reproducible cyberinfrastructure
based on sciunits gaining adoption in the domain of geosciences
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