Isabelle/PIDE as Platform for Educational Tools

The Isabelle/PIDE platform addresses the question whether proof assistants of the LCF family are suitable as technological basis for educational tools. The traditionally strong logical foundations of systems like HOL, Coq, or Isabelle have so far been counter-balanced by somewhat inaccessible interaction via the TTY (or minor variations like the well-known Proof General / Emacs interface). Thus the fundamental question of math education tools with fully-formal background theories has often been answered negatively due to accidental weaknesses of existing proof engines. The idea of "PIDE" (which means "Prover IDE") is to integrate existing provers like Isabelle into a larger environment, that facilitates access by end-users and other tools. We use Scala to expose the proof engine in ML to the JVM world, where many user-interfaces, editor frameworks, and educational tools already exist. This shall ultimately lead to combined mathematical assistants, where the logical engine is in the background, without obstructing the view on applications of formal methods, formalized mathematics, and math education in particular.Comment: In Proceedings THedu'11, arXiv:1202.453

Improve investigating gravitational-wave sources with the help of MPI and OpenMP interface

The most recent catalog of gravitational waves compiled by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration contains over 90 compact-binary coalescences, mostly binary black holes. The astrophysical interpretations of the detected sources are still uncertain, although the number is expected to rise significantly over the next few years. From a theoretical point of view, one of the possible explanations for the formation of merging compact binaries is the isolated binary scenario. In this instance, two stars are gravitationally bound from the moment they are formed. During stellar evolution, stars move closer to one another, and at the end of their lives, they turn into compact remnants. As a result, a formed compact binary system has the potential to merge during the lifetime of the Universe. Binary population-synthesis codes are tools that can evolve massive populations of single or binary stars from the formation moment to the compact remnants stage. They play an essential role in the investigation of this scenario. The evolution of one binary system does not require significant computational resources. However, to obtain sufficient statistics on compact object mergers, we require simulations of billions of binary systems with different initial conditions, stellar masses, evolutionary prescriptions, and metallicities. In this project, I will implement a novel parallelization method for the SEVN code, a state-of-the-art population-synthesis code developed in SISSA and at the University of Padova. The final goal is to make the SEVN code run effectively on multi-node supercomputers. To accomplish that, I will use the Message Passing Interface (MPI) for inter-node parallelization and the Open Multi-Processing (OpenMP) interface for intra-node parallelization. Furthermore, I will also implement an automatic and adaptive data loading algorithm to load input binaries in chunks. Finally, I will investigate the weak and strong scaling of the code on various computing machines. The new code is expected to significantly speed up the evolution of binary systems, giving us the chance to investigate the formation of gravitational-wave sources in different stellar environments, possibly up to the regime of galaxies (i.e., billions of binaries)

VANET Applications: Hot Use Cases

Current challenges of car manufacturers are to make roads safe, to achieve free flowing traffic with few congestions, and to reduce pollution by an effective fuel use. To reach these goals, many improvements are performed in-car, but more and more approaches rely on connected cars with communication capabilities between cars, with an infrastructure, or with IoT devices. Monitoring and coordinating vehicles allow then to compute intelligent ways of transportation. Connected cars have introduced a new way of thinking cars - not only as a mean for a driver to go from A to B, but as smart cars - a user extension like the smartphone today. In this report, we introduce concepts and specific vocabulary in order to classify current innovations or ideas on the emerging topic of smart car. We present a graphical categorization showing this evolution in function of the societal evolution. Different perspectives are adopted: a vehicle-centric view, a vehicle-network view, and a user-centric view; described by simple and complex use-cases and illustrated by a list of emerging and current projects from the academic and industrial worlds. We identified an empty space in innovation between the user and his car: paradoxically even if they are both in interaction, they are separated through different application uses. Future challenge is to interlace social concerns of the user within an intelligent and efficient driving

D4.6 Report on the results of cycle 3 demonstrators:Aggregates internal deliverables ID4.12, ID4.13, ID4.14, ID4.15, ID4.16

Hernández-Leo, D., Sligte, H., Glahn, C., Krekels, B., Keuls, C., Louys, A., Stefanov, K., Perez, M., Chacón, J., Santos, P., Mazzetti, A., Herder, E., Maxwell, K., Kiercheben, J., Griffiths, D., & Kluijfhout, E. (2009). D4.6 - Report on the results of cycle 3 demonstrators. Aggregates internal deliverables ID4.12, ID4.13, ID4.14, ID4.15, ID4.16. TENCompetence.This document includes the evaluation results of the Cycle 3 real-life evaluation activities. A cross-analysis of the results is compiled in order to present the impact indicators of the project in terms of outreach, learning benefits, organizational implications, and business opportunities identified in these experiences. The implementations and eight business/market-relevant demonstrators conducted in collaboration with external "adopter organizations" from different countries in Europe. These external organizations are Associated Partners or different units within the partners'organization. The revised pilots and the demonstrators test the tooling achieved along DIP-3. Both pilots and business demonstrators show to provide benefits to socially- and industrially-relevant scenarios. Areas of proven special impact include adult competence developmentfor social inclusion, provision of learning paths to support competence development of distributed professionals, informal competence development, human resources personal competence development, and sharing of competence profiles between organizations to support the mobility of their professionals.The work on this publication has been sponsored by the TENCompetence Integrated Project that is funded by the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme, priority IST/Technology Enhanced Learning. Contract 027087 [http://www.tencompetence.org

THE NEUROEDUCATION PERSPECTIVE IN THE EVALUATION OF THE TEACHER'S METHODOLOGICAL-DIDACTIC SKILLS

La spinta fornita dagli studi Brain-based comporta la riflessione e l’auto-riflessione sulle prassi e sulle scelte metodologico-didattiche. Il contributo inquadra una ricerca avviata nel 2021, presso l’Università di Palermo, finalizzata alla definizione di strategie e strumenti per la valutazione di attività neurodidattiche per lo sviluppo delle competenze metodologico-didattiche dell’insegnante rispetto a cinque aree di interesse neurodidattico: trasversale, cognitiva, socio-emotiva, espressiva e motoria.The boost provided by Brain-based studies entails reflection and self-reflection on methodological-didactic practices and choices. The contribution frames a research project started in 2021, at the University of Palermo, aimed at defining strategies and tools for the evaluation of neurodidactic activities for the development of the teacher's methodological-didactic competences with respect to five areas of neurodidactic interest: transversal, cognitive, socio-emotional, expressive, and motor

Analysis, simulation and testing of ITS applications based on wireless communication technologies

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) aim to improve road transport safety and efficiency, to manage road networks in the interest of the society and to provide real time responses to events. In order to reach these goals, real time feedback to the drivers is expected through the integration of telecommunications, sensing and information technologies with transport engineering. Wireless communication technologies, that have been used in industrial applications for more than 30 years, play a crucial role in ITS, as based on the concept of multiple devices (on both vehicle and infrastructure side) interconnected in different ways. Connectivity, in tandem with sensing technologies, is fuelling the innovations that will inevitably lead to the next big opportunity for road transport: autonomous vehicles. Therefore, this study has investigated - through analysis, simulation and field testing – on applications based on wireless communication technologies meant to support both Data acquisition and Data diffusion as fundamental aspects/ phases in ITS, where data is widely individuated as being the key element

The impact of stellar envelopes on the formation of merging compact-object binaries

The common envelope (CE) phase play a key role in the formation of many astrophysical systems, including merging compact-object binaries. In a tight binary system, the CE phase happens when one star overfills its Roche lobe and initiates a process of dynamically unstable mass transfer. In this scenario, the mass transfer rate increases with time, the secondary star cannot accrete all the incoming material, and the latter surrounds the entire binary. The gas surrounding the binary star is known as CE. During the CE phase, the binary system rotates at a different rate than the CE. The orbital energy decreases due to the friction between the binary system and the CE. Due to orbital energy loss, the core of the donor and the companion star spiral toward one another within the CE (spiral-in phase). The orbital semi-major axis of binary systems can shrink by orders of magnitude during the spiral-in phase. The lost fraction of orbital energy is transferred to the envelope, which heats up and expands. The CE phase can end with two different outcomes. In the first scenario, the envelope is ejected, leaving the binary system with quite small semi-major axes. In the other scenario, during the spiral-in phase, the two stars merge and become an (evolved) massive star. Self-consistent hydrodynamical simulations of CE are very complex and computationally expensive. In fast population-synthesis studies, the CE phase is simulated via the (α,λ)- formalism, where α parameterizes the fraction of orbital energy transferred to the envelope, and λ is the envelope’s binding-energy parameter. The time required for a binary system to merge is highly dependent on the α and λ parameters, so their values have a crucial impact on the interpretation of many astrophysical systems, including merging compact-object binaries. While constraining the α parameter is challenging, we can calculate the λ values and consider λ as a physical quantity instead of a parameter. In this thesis, we present new results on self-consistent calculations of the binding energy parameter for a large set of hydrogen and helium stars, using the up-todate tracks from the PARSEC stellar evolution code. We demonstrate how the definition of the core-envelope boundary, the nature of the energy sources, metallicity, stellar mass, and evolutionary stage influence the value of λ parameters. We show that the new λ values are up to one order of magnitude lower than those obtained in previous studies and we discuss the associated implication for the formation of merging compact-object binaries. We present fitting formulas for the new binding energy parameters for hydrogen and helium stars obtained in this work, and we evaluate their accuracy with respect to self-consistent data. The SEVN population-synthesis code is the ground for implementing the new bindingenergy prescriptions obtained in this thesis and for an up-to-date astrophysical interpretation of present and forthcoming gravitational-wave sources. Since the SEVN code is based on the star tracks of the PARSEC stellar evolution code, it will be self-consistent to test our new CE prescriptions and study their impact on the evolutionary pathways of binary systems. In this thesis, we focus mainly on introducing several technical improvements in the SEVN code (e.g., adaptive data loading, single and multi-node parallelization), which is the preparatory work that will be crucial to perform efficient simulations of large populations of binary stars and testing the new binding-energy prescriptions

Practices of Belonging: Identity Among Polish Tatars

The recent success of right-wing parties in countries around the world, including Hungary, the US and Poland, has brought renewed attempts to understand how forms of identity have been politicized as a way to navigate a world that is portrayed as increasingly variegated and uncertain. Through research among the historic Muslim Polish Tatar community in the politically conservative Podlasie region, I attempt to unpack how group identity and boundary formation occurs. My work focuses on how conceptions of (be)longing are reproduced and/or tactically contested in affective and bodily ways, such as through emotionally replete communal gatherings for Ramadan Bajram, food practices that both uphold and contest Islamic dietary prohibitions, and dance practices which fuse Polish, Turkish and Tatar traditions. In my research I attempt to unpack how narratives of origins, blood, and rooted-ness do not foreclose possibilities of movement, but rather connect peoples across paths which allow for multiple, conflicting lens of belonging. Building on existing literature on religious communities and group formation, I am interested in where tensions and slippages occur between idealized narratives of group membership based on religion and ethnicity, and how individual identities are actually practiced and performed. My research attempts to foreground the affective capabilities and motility of the body to understand how belonging differentially flows and sticks to individuals at the nexus of gender, community, and religious positionalities