130,017 research outputs found
Observational models of requirements evolution
Requirements Evolution is one of the main issues that affect development activities as well as system features (e.g., system dependability). Although researchers and practitioners recognise the importance of requirements evolution, research results and experience are still patchy. This points out a lack of methodologies that address requirements evolution. This thesis investigates the current understanding of requirements evolution and explores new directions in requirements evolution research. The empirical analysis of industrial case studies highlights software requirements evolution as an important issue. Unfortunately, traditional requirements engineering methodologies provide limited support to capture requirements evolution. Heterogeneous engineering provides a comprehensive account of system requirements. Heterogeneous engineering stresses a holistic viewpoint that allows us to understand the underlying mechanisms of evolution of socio-technical systems. Requirements, as mappings between socio-technical solutions and problems, represent an account of the history of socio-technical issues arising and being solved within industrial settings. The formal extension of a heterogeneous account of requirements provides a framework to model and capture requirements evolution. The application of the proposed framework provides further evidence that it is possible to capture and model evolutionary information about requirements. The discussion of scenarios of use stresses practical necessities for methodologies addressing requirements evolution. Finally, the identification of a broad spectrum of evolutions in socio-technical systems points out strong contingencies between system evolution and dependability. This thesis argues that the better our understanding of socio-techn..
Galactic Cosmic Rays from Superbubbles and the Abundances of Lithium, Beryllium, and Boron
In this article we study the galactic evolution of the LiBeB elements within
the framework of a detailed model of the chemical evolution of the Galaxy that
includes galactic cosmic ray nucleosynthesis by particles accelerated in
superbubbles. The chemical composition of the superbubble consists of varying
proportions of ISM and freshly supernova synthesized material. The
observational trends of 6 LiBeB evolution are nicely reproduced by models in
which GCR come from a mixture of 25% of supernova material with 75% of ISM,
except for 6 Li, for which maybe an extra source is required at low
metallicities. To account for 7 Li evolution several additional sources have
been considered (neutrino-induced nucleosynthesis, nova outbursts, C-stars).
The model fulfills the energetic requirements for GCR acceleration.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journa
Accelerated expansion from braneworld models with variable vacuum energy
In braneworld models a variable vacuum energy may appear if the size of the
extra dimension changes during the evolution of the universe. In this scenario
the acceleration of the universe is related not only to the variation of the
cosmological term, but also to the time evolution of and, possibly, to the
variation of other fundamental "constants" as well. This is because the
expansion rate of the extra dimension appears in different contexts, notably in
expressions concerning the variation of rest mass and electric charge. We
concentrate our attention on spatially-flat, homogeneous and isotropic,
brane-universes where the matter density decreases as an inverse power of the
scale factor, similar (but at different rate) to the power law in FRW-universes
of general relativity.
We show that these braneworld cosmologies are consistent with the observed
accelerating universe and other observational requirements. In particular,
becomes constant and asymptotically in
time. Another important feature is that the models contain no "adjustable"
parameters. All the quantities, even the five-dimensional ones, can be
evaluated by means of measurements in 4D. We provide precise constrains on the
cosmological parameters and demonstrate that the "effective" equation of state
of the universe can, in principle, be determined by measurements of the
deceleration parameter alone. We give an explicit expression relating the
density parameters , and the deceleration
parameter . These results constitute concrete predictions that may help in
observations for an experimental/observational test of the model.Comment: References added, typos correcte
Shape models and physical properties of asteroids
Despite the large amount of high quality data generated in recent space
encounters with asteroids, the majority of our knowledge about these objects
comes from ground based observations. Asteroids travelling in orbits that are
potentially hazardous for the Earth form an especially interesting group to be
studied. In order to predict their orbital evolution, it is necessary to
investigate their physical properties. This paper briefly describes the data
requirements and different techniques used to solve the lightcurve inversion
problem. Although photometry is the most abundant type of observational data,
models of asteroids can be obtained using various data types and techniques. We
describe the potential of radar imaging and stellar occultation timings to be
combined with disk-integrated photometry in order to reveal information about
physical properties of asteroids.Comment: From Assessment and Mitigation of Asteroid Impact Hazards boo
Atmospheric Heating and Wind Acceleration: Results for Cool Evolved Stars based on Proposed Processes
A chromosphere is a universal attribute of stars of spectral type later than
~F5. Evolved (K and M) giants and supergiants (including the zeta Aurigae
binaries) show extended and highly turbulent chromospheres, which develop into
slow massive winds. The associated continuous mass loss has a significant
impact on stellar evolution, and thence on the chemical evolution of galaxies.
Yet despite the fundamental importance of those winds in astrophysics, the
question of their origin(s) remains unsolved. What sources heat a chromosphere?
What is the role of the chromosphere in the formation of stellar winds? This
chapter provides a review of the observational requirements and theoretical
approaches for modeling chromospheric heating and the acceleration of winds in
single cool, evolved stars and in eclipsing binary stars, including physical
models that have recently been proposed. It describes the successes that have
been achieved so far by invoking acoustic and MHD waves to provide a physical
description of plasma heating and wind acceleration, and discusses the
challenges that still remain.Comment: 46 pages, 9 figures, 1 table; modified and unedited manuscript;
accepted version to appear in: Giants of Eclipse, eds. E. Griffin and T. Ake
(Berlin: Springer
Sensitivity of the g-mode frequencies to pulsation codes and their parameters
From the recent work of the Evolution and Seismic Tools Activity (ESTA,
Lebreton et al. 2006; Monteiro et al. 2008), whose Task 2 is devoted to compare
pulsational frequencies computed using most of the pulsational codes available
in the asteroseismic community, the dependence of the theoretical frequencies
with non-physical choices is now quite well fixed. To ensure that the accuracy
of the computed frequencies is of the same order of magnitude or better than
the observational errors, some requirements in the equilibrium models and the
numerical resolutions of the pulsational equations must be followed. In
particular, we have verified the numerical accuracy obtained with the Saclay
seismic model, which is used to study the solar g-mode region (60 to
140Hz). We have compared the results coming from the Aarhus adiabatic
pulsation code (ADIPLS), with the frequencies computed with the Granada Code
(GraCo) taking into account several possible choices. We have concluded that
the present equilibrium models and the use of the Richardson extrapolation
ensure an accuracy of the order of in the determination of the
frequencies, which is quite enough for our purposes.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, accepted in Solar Physic
Report of the proceedings of the Colloquium and Workshop on Multiscale Coupled Modeling
The Colloquium and Workshop on Multiscale Coupled Modeling was held for the purpose of addressing modeling issues of importance to planning for the Cooperative Multiscale Experiment (CME). The colloquium presentations attempted to assess the current ability of numerical models to accurately simulate the development and evolution of mesoscale cloud and precipitation systems and their cycling of water substance, energy, and trace species. The primary purpose of the workshop was to make specific recommendations for the improvement of mesoscale models prior to the CME, their coupling with cloud, cumulus ensemble, hydrology, air chemistry models, and the observational requirements to initialize and verify these models
Transition from decelerated to accelerated cosmic expansion in braneworld universes
Braneworld theory provides a natural setting to treat, at a classical level,
the cosmological effects of vacuum energy. Non-static extra dimensions can
generally lead to a variable vacuum energy, which in turn may explain the
present accelerated cosmic expansion. We concentrate our attention in models
where the vacuum energy decreases as an inverse power law of the scale factor.
These models agree with the observed accelerating universe, while fitting
simultaneously the observational data for the density and deceleration
parameter. The redshift at which the vacuum energy can start to dominate
depends on the mass density of ordinary matter. For Omega = 0.3, the transition
from decelerated to accelerated cosmic expansion occurs at z approx 0.48 +/-
0.20, which is compatible with SNe data. We set a lower bound on the
deceleration parameter today, namely q > - 1 + 3 Omega/2, i.e., q > - 0.55 for
Omega = 0.3. The future evolution of the universe crucially depends on the time
when vacuum starts to dominate over ordinary matter. If it dominates only
recently, at an epoch z < 0.64, then the universe is accelerating today and
will continue that way forever. If vacuum dominates earlier, at z > 0.64, then
the deceleration comes back and the universe recollapses at some point in the
distant future. In the first case, quintessence and Cardassian expansion can be
formally interpreted as the low energy limit of our model, although they are
entirely different in philosophy. In the second case there is no correspondence
between these models and ours.Comment: In V2 typos are corrected and one reference is added for section 1.
To appear in General Relativity and Gravitatio
Dynamics of Quintessence Models of Dark Energy with Exponential Coupling to the Dark Matter
We explore quintessence models of dark energy which exhibit non-minimal
coupling between the dark matter and the dark energy components of the cosmic
fluid. The kind of coupling chosen is inspired in scalar-tensor theories of
gravity. We impose a suitable dynamics of the expansion allowing to derive
exact Friedmann-Robertson-Walker solutions once the coupling function is given
as input. Self-interaction potentials of single and double exponential types
emerge as result of our choice of the coupling function. The stability and
existence of the solutions is discussed in some detail. Although, in general,
models with appropriated interaction between the components of the cosmic
mixture are useful to handle the coincidence problem, in the present study the
coincidence can not be evaded due to the choice of the solution generating
ansatz.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure
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