148,615 research outputs found
S+Net: extending functional coordination with extra-functional semantics
This technical report introduces S+Net, a compositional coordination language
for streaming networks with extra-functional semantics. Compositionality
simplifies the specification of complex parallel and distributed applications;
extra-functional semantics allow the application designer to reason about and
control resource usage, performance and fault handling. The key feature of
S+Net is that functional and extra-functional semantics are defined
orthogonally from each other. S+Net can be seen as a simultaneous
simplification and extension of the existing coordination language S-Net, that
gives control of extra-functional behavior to the S-Net programmer. S+Net can
also be seen as a transitional research step between S-Net and AstraKahn,
another coordination language currently being designed at the University of
Hertfordshire. In contrast with AstraKahn which constitutes a re-design from
the ground up, S+Net preserves the basic operational semantics of S-Net and
thus provides an incremental introduction of extra-functional control in an
existing language.Comment: 34 pages, 11 figures, 3 table
Petri Nets and Other Models of Concurrency
This paper retraces, collects, and summarises contributions of the authors --- in collaboration with others --- on the theme of Petri nets and their categorical relationships to other models of concurrency
An Operational Petri Net Semantics for the Join-Calculus
We present a concurrent operational Petri net semantics for the
join-calculus, a process calculus for specifying concurrent and distributed
systems. There often is a gap between system specifications and the actual
implementations caused by synchrony assumptions on the specification side and
asynchronously interacting components in implementations. The join-calculus is
promising to reduce this gap by providing an abstract specification language
which is asynchronously distributable. Classical process semantics establish an
implicit order of actually independent actions, by means of an interleaving. So
does the semantics of the join-calculus. To capture such independent actions,
step-based semantics, e.g., as defined on Petri nets, are employed. Our Petri
net semantics for the join-calculus induces step-behavior in a natural way. We
prove our semantics behaviorally equivalent to the original join-calculus
semantics by means of a bisimulation. We discuss how join specific assumptions
influence an existing notion of distributability based on Petri nets.Comment: In Proceedings EXPRESS/SOS 2012, arXiv:1208.244
Multi-Entity Dependence Learning with Rich Context via Conditional Variational Auto-encoder
Multi-Entity Dependence Learning (MEDL) explores conditional correlations
among multiple entities. The availability of rich contextual information
requires a nimble learning scheme that tightly integrates with deep neural
networks and has the ability to capture correlation structures among
exponentially many outcomes. We propose MEDL_CVAE, which encodes a conditional
multivariate distribution as a generating process. As a result, the variational
lower bound of the joint likelihood can be optimized via a conditional
variational auto-encoder and trained end-to-end on GPUs. Our MEDL_CVAE was
motivated by two real-world applications in computational sustainability: one
studies the spatial correlation among multiple bird species using the eBird
data and the other models multi-dimensional landscape composition and human
footprint in the Amazon rainforest with satellite images. We show that
MEDL_CVAE captures rich dependency structures, scales better than previous
methods, and further improves on the joint likelihood taking advantage of very
large datasets that are beyond the capacity of previous methods.Comment: The first two authors contribute equall
Financial Disclosure and the Board: Is Independence of Directors Always Efficient
In listed companies, the Board of directors is the ultimate responsible of information disclosure. The "conventional wisdom" considers independence of directors as the essential attribute to improve the quality of that disclosure. In a sense, this approach subordinates expertise to independence. However, effective certification may require finn-specific expertise, in particular for intangible-intensive business models. However, this latter form of expertise is negatively related to independence as it is commonly measured and evaluated. We show that there exists an optimal share of independent directors for each company, related to the magnitude of intangible resources.Board of directors; information disclosure; accounting; intangible resources
Financial disclosure and the Board: A case for non-independent directors
In listed companies, the Board of directors has ultimate responsibility for information disclosure. The conventional wisdom is that director independence is an essential factor in improving the quality of that disclosure. In a sense, this approach subordinates expertise to independence. We argue that effective certification may require firm-specific expertise, in particular for intangible-intensive business models. However, this latter form of expertise is negatively related to independence as it is commonly measured and evaluated. Accordingly, there exists an optimal share of independent directors for each company, related to the level of intangible resources.
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