Probabilistic model checking on HPC systems for the performance analysis of mobile networks

We report on the use of HPC resources for the performance analysis of the mobile cellular network model described in “A New Finite-Source Queueing Model for Mobile Cellular Networks Applying Spectrum Renting” by Tien Van Do et al. That paper proposed a new finite-source retrial queueing model with spectrum renting that was analyzed with the MOSEL-2 tool. Our results show how this model can be also appropriately described and analyzed with the probabilistic model checker PRISM, although at some cost considering the formulation of the model; in particular, we are able to accurately reproduce most of the analytical results presented in that paper and thus increase the confidence in the previously presented results. However, we also outline some discrepancies which may hint to deficiencies of the original analysis. Moreover, by applying a parallel computing framework developed for this purpose, we are able to considerably speed up studies performed with the PRISM tool. The investigations are illustrated by figures and conclusions are drawn

An Analysis Of The Effectiveness Of The Higher Education Anatomy Educational Software Mastering Anatomy & Physiology

Higher education in the 21st century contends with a greater variety of conditions than ever before. Classes can operate in a full-time, part-time, hybrid, seated, or online format. This diversity in modality can lead to inconsistent curricula with inconsistent rigor. Instructors are challenged with designing a curriculum they believe to be rigorous but at the same time engaging to their students. This research focused on the evaluation of the higher education software program Mastering Anatomy & Physiology (MAP) from Pearson Education. The research included an analysis of student scores who had repeated an identical introductory anatomy course in a strictly online format. Quantitative data for this research included student performance on identical assessments over a period of two and a half calendar years, or eight academic grading periods. The research also included data collected from a focus group which consisted of anatomy instructors who have used the software as a critical part of their course instruction. The results of this research were inconclusive. Some data suggested that MAP is an effective tool in online instruction of anatomy curricula while other data suggested it had little/no effect. Additional studies of the software including larger sample sizes are recommended

Video Collaboration: Copresence and Performance

The purpose of this qualitative narrative theory study on video collaboration platform use is to explain how an individual\u27s on-screen performance and their interpersonal verbal and nonverbal communication contributes to engagement and copresence with their audience. The literature review analyzes critical interpersonal communication theories to explain how this affects engagement and copresence levels in mediated virtual environments. The research was conducted through interviews with thirty professional businesspeople about their video collaboration experiences during the COVID-19 2020 shutdown. The interview respondents told the stories of business communication successes and failures that correspond to the scholarly theories in the literature review. The respondents discussed how verbal and nonverbal communication was used successfully and unsuccessfully. They also discussed why their companies found it challenging to communicate virtually during the COVID-19 shutdown with video collaboration. A final discussion analyzes how communication theory and practical experience combined to explain how verbal and nonverbal communication impact mediated virtual communications when using video collaboration. This study offers a model to help explain how interpersonal communication, engagement, and copresence exist in a cyclical motion. This model can be helpful to business people and scholars to communicate in a mediated virtual environment using video collaboration platforms

The primacy of Knowing-how : cognition, know-how and an enactive action first epistemology

The Enactive Approach (EA) is a project of naturalization of the mind. EA should be able to offer a naturalization of knowledge, such underlying naturalization is what is found in this dissertation. The result is an epistemology where the most basal aspect of knowledge is not to accurately represent. For an enactive epistemology, the primary relation is how knowers relate, contact or engage with what is known. I argue in the final chapter that knowing is a perspectival, affectively entangled, historically situated relation between knower and known. Knower, known and knowing are characterized in broad naturalistic terms. EA is first presented in the context of a larger trend of studying cognition in an ecological way. The understanding of mind in the context of the living leads me to argue that living systems and precarious autonomous systems in general are intrinsically teleological systems whose defining activity consists in being responsive to the viability boundaries or conditions of their own existence. Cognitive systems skillfully change in adaptive manners to not disintegrate, even if their changes are not optimal. The account provides a relational account of adaptive behavior as the basis for an account of know-how. The more general notion of know-how can be articulated from the notion of perception as mastery of sensorimotor contingencies. Know how in general is understood as the organization and reorganization of bodily processes and structures that enables reliable successful action. Know-how as the bodily sensitivities and capabilities relative to the cognitive domain that reliably result in the success of action is a feature of all forms of cognitive engagement. The cognition or knowing-how of languaging consists in acquiring, producing, interpreting and modifying the know-how shared within linguistic communities. Crucially, the influence of the interactive context in a participant’s sense-making varies in a continuum of participation. In one end of the spectrum one finds sense-making that remains largely (but not absolutely) individual and in the other end where what characterizes the activity is a joint process of sense-making. Knowing-how to language is knowing-how to be in dialogue with plural and idiosyncratic identities while being both yourself. A shared community of practices emerges as the basis of objectivity; knowing-how is a communal affair. If cognition is the skillful and not necessarily optimal adaptation of a precarious systemic identity to an always changing environment, all cognition rests on know how. Cognition rests on know-how in the sense that all cognition is understood in terms of skillful transition between states of a system struggling with possible disintegration. Intelligent behavior is not based on symbolic structures and context-free knowledge, it is based on richly detailed, context-specific know-how. The knowledgeable interaction with the world is the responsiveness to the now that incorporates the history leading up to it.A Abordagem Enativa (AE) é um projeto de naturalização da mente. AE deveria ser capaz de oferecer uma naturalização do conhecimento, tal naturalização subjacente é o que apresento ao leitor nesta tese. O resultado é uma epistemologia na qual o aspecto mais básico do conhecimento não é representar acuradamente. Para uma epistemologia enativa, a relação privilegiada é como conhecedores se relacionam, entram em contato ou engajam com o que é conhecido. Argumento no capítulo final que o conhecimento é uma relação perspectival, afectivamente emaranhada, historicamente situada entre conhecedor e conhecido. Conhecedor, conhecido e conhecer são caracterizados em termos liberalmente naturalistas. AE é primeiro apresentada no contexto de uma ampla tendência de estudar-se ecologicamente a cognição. O entendimento da vida no contexto do vivo me leva a argumentar que sistemas vivos e sistemas autônomos precários em geral são teleológicos e sua atividade definidora consiste em ser responsivo às fronteiras de viabilidade de sua própria existência. Sistemas cognitivos habilidosamente mudam de modos adaptativos evitando a desintegração, mesmo que as mudanças não sejam optimais. A abordagem provê uma visão relacional do comportamento adaptativo como base para o conhecimento prático [know-how]. A noção mais geral de conhecimento prático pode ser elaborada a partir da noção de percepção como maestria de contingências sensório-motoras. Conhecimento prático em geral é compreendido como a organização e reorganização de processos e estruturas corporais que possibilita de modo confiável a ação bem-sucedida. Conhecimento prático como as sensibilidades e capacidades corporais para o confiável sucesso da ação é uma característica de todas as formas de engajamento cognitivo. A cognição ou o sabendo-fazer do lingueajear consiste em adquirir, produzir, interpretar e modificar o conhecimento prático compartilhado entre comunidades linguísticas. Crucialmente, a influência do contexto interativo na produção de sentido de um participante de uma comunidade varia em um contínuo de participação. Num extremo encontra-se produção de sentido que permanece majoritariamente (mas não absolutamente individual, e no outro encontra-se atividades caracterizadas como processos conjuntos de produção de sentido. Sabendo-fazer linguagem é saber como estar em diálogo com identidades plurais e idiossincráticas enquanto se é uma você mesmo. Uma comunidade de práticas compartilhadas emerge como a base da objetividade, saber-como é um assunto comunal. Se a cognição é a adaptação habilidosa e não necessariamente optimal de uma identidade sistêmica precária em um ambiente constantemente mudando, toda cognição apoia se em conhecimento prático. Cognição apoia-se em conhecimento prático na medida que toda cognição é entendida em termos da transição habilidosa entre estados de um sistema sob a possibilidade de desintegração Comportamento inteligente não é baseado em estruturas simbólicas e conhecimento geral, baseia-se em conhecimento prático ricamente detalhado e relevante ao contexto específico. A interação com o mundo dotada de conhecimento é a responsividade para o agora que incorpora a história que nos levou até aqui

Decentralised Workload Scheduler for Resource Allocation in Computational Clusters

This paper presents a detailed design of a decentralised agent-based scheduler, which can be used to manage workloads within the computing cells of a Cloud system. Our proposed solution is based on the concept of service allocation negotiation, whereby all system nodes communicate between themselves, and scheduling logic is decentralised. The presented architecture has been implemented, with multiple simulations run using real-world workload traces from the Google Cluster Data project. The results were then compared to the scheduling patterns of Google’s Borg system

A political ecology of bovine tuberculosis eradication in Northern Ireland

Bovine tuberculosis (TB) is arguably the most important animal health problem in the world. TB is endemic in the Global South, and also affects several nations and regions with highly developed cattle farming industries and statutory eradication programmes in the European Union, including Northern Ireland. The disease has implications for livestock agriculture, wildlife ecology, public health, and the national economy. In addition to scientific and technical complexities, socio-economic and socio-cultural factors affect efforts to control the disease. Disease problems such as TB at the human-nature interface are complex and indeterminate, and require innovative multidisciplinary research to find holistic and workable solutions: geography has much to contribute. This investigation uses a political ecology framework, and provides explanations for the historical and geographical patterns of the disease through a ‘chain of explanation’ approach (Blaikie & Brookfield, 1987). It utilizes political ecology, STS, rural, cultural, health, ‘more-than-human’ and veterinary literatures to produce a political ecology of animal disease control in the First World. Significantly, this account is as much about people and politics as it is about land use, technology, cattle, badgers, bacteria and disease. Conducted from the positionality of being a vet and a farmer’s son, and based on ethnographic interviews with farmers, vets, policy makers and other agricultural industry representatives, the links in the chain explain why the statutory eradication programme has not yet been successful in achieving its original aim. The disease continues to spread across the landscape and evades efforts to eradicate. The thesis shows how TB permeates time and space shaped by global economic forces, political structures, cultural practices and complex ecologies. TB, often invisible and underestimated, must be made visible again. New network structures are required to rescale governance and move closer to the target of TB eradication