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Confidence: Its role in dependability cases for risk assessment
Society is increasingly requiring quantitative assessment of risk and associated dependability cases. Informally, a dependability case comprises some reasoning, based on assumptions and evidence, that supports a dependability claim at a particular level of confidence. In this paper we argue that a quantitative assessment of claim confidence is necessary for proper assessment of risk. We discuss the way in which confidence depends upon uncertainty about the underpinnings of the dependability case (truth of assumptions, correctness of reasoning, strength of evidence), and propose that probability is the appropriate measure of uncertainty. We discuss some of the obstacles to quantitative assessment of confidence (issues of composability of subsystem claims; of the multi-dimensional, multi-attribute nature of dependability claims; of the difficult role played by dependence between different kinds of evidence, assumptions, etc). We show that, even in simple cases, the confidence in a claim arising from a dependability case can be surprisingly low
DIRBE Minus 2MASS: Confirming the CIRB in 40 New Regions at 2.2 and 3.5 Microns
With the release of the 2MASS All-Sky Point Source Catalog, stellar fluxes
from 2MASS are used to remove the contribution due to Galactic stars from the
intensity measured by DIRBE in 40 new regions in the North and South Galactic
polar caps. After subtracting the interplanetary and Galactic foregrounds, a
consistent residual intensity of 14.69 +/- 4.49 kJy/sr at 2.2 microns is found.
Allowing for a constant calibration factor between the DIRBE 3.5 microns and
the 2MASS 2.2 microns fluxes, a similar analysis leaves a residual intensity of
15.62 +/- 3.34 kJy/sr at 3.5 microns. The intercepts of the DIRBE minus 2MASS
correlation at 1.25 microns show more scatter and are a smaller fraction of the
foreground, leading to a still weak limit on the CIRB of 8.88 +/- 6.26 kJy/sr
(1 sigma).Comment: 25 pages LaTeX, 10 figures, 5 tables; Version accepted by the ApJ.
Includes minor changes to the text including further discussion of zodiacal
light issues and the allowance for variable stars in computing uncertainties
in the stellar contribution to the DIRBE intensitie
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Toward a Formalism for Conservative Claims about the Dependability of Software-Based Systems
In recent work, we have argued for a formal treatment of confidence about the claims made in dependability cases for software-based systems. The key idea underlying this work is "the inevitability of uncertainty": It is rarely possible to assert that a claim about safety or reliability is true with certainty. Much of this uncertainty is epistemic in nature, so it seems inevitable that expert judgment will continue to play an important role in dependability cases. Here, we consider a simple case where an expert makes a claim about the probability of failure on demand (pfd) of a subsystem of a wider system and is able to express his confidence about that claim probabilistically. An important, but difficult, problem then is how such subsystem (claim, confidence) pairs can be propagated through a dependability case for a wider system, of which the subsystems are components. An informal way forward is to justify, at high confidence, a strong claim, and then, conservatively, only claim something much weaker: "I'm 99 percent confident that the pfd is less than 10-5, so it's reasonable to be 100 percent confident that it is less than 10-3." These conservative pfds of subsystems can then be propagated simply through the dependability case of the wider system. In this paper, we provide formal support for such reasoning
Studying Migrant Assimilation Through Facebook Interests
Migrants' assimilation is a major challenge for European societies, in part
because of the sudden surge of refugees in recent years and in part because of
long-term demographic trends. In this paper, we use Facebook's data for
advertisers to study the levels of assimilation of Arabic-speaking migrants in
Germany, as seen through the interests they express online. Our results
indicate a gradient of assimilation along demographic lines, language spoken
and country of origin. Given the difficulty to collect timely migration data,
in particular for traits related to cultural assimilation, the methods that we
develop and the results that we provide open new lines of research that
computational social scientists are well-positioned to address.Comment: Accepted as a short paper at Social Informatics 2018
(https://socinfo2018.hse.ru/). Please cite the SocInfo versio
Aging of the Nonlinear Optical Susceptibility of colloidal solutions
Using Z-scan and dynamic light scattering measurements we investigate the
nonlinear optics response of a colloidal solution undergoing dynamics slowing
down with age. We study the high optical nonlinearity of an organic dye
(Rhodamine B) dispersed in a water-clay (Laponite) solution, at different clay
concentrations (2.0 wt% - 2.6 wt%), experiencing the gelation process. We
determine the clay platelets self diffusion coefficient and, by its comparison
with the structural relaxation time, we conclude that the gelation process
proceeds through the structuring of interconnecting clay platelets network
rather than through clusters growth and aggregation.Comment: 4 figures, 4 page
Is pulsar B0656+14 a very nearby RRAT source?
The recently discovered RRAT sources are characterized by very bright radio
bursts which, while being periodically related, occur infrequently. We find
bursts with the same characteristics for the known pulsar B0656+14. These
bursts represent pulses from the bright end of an extended smooth pulse-energy
distribution and are shown to be unlike giant pulses, giant micropulses or the
pulses of normal pulsars. The extreme peak-fluxes of the brightest of these
pulses indicates that PSR B0656+14, were it not so near, could only have been
discovered as an RRAT source. Longer observations of the RRATs may reveal that
they, like PSR B0656+14, emit weaker emission in addition to the bursts.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted by ApJ
Bounding the dimensions of rational cohomology groups
Let be an algebraically closed field of characteristic , and let
be a simple simply-connected algebraic group over that is defined and
split over the prime field . In this paper we investigate
situations where the dimension of a rational cohomology group for can be
bounded by a constant times the dimension of the coefficient module. We then
demonstrate how our results can be applied to obtain effective bounds on the
first cohomology of the symmetric group. We also show how, for finite Chevalley
groups, our methods permit significant improvements over previous estimates for
the dimensions of second cohomology groups.Comment: 13 page
Large Angular Scale CMB Anisotropy Induced by Cosmic Strings
We simulate the anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) induced
by cosmic strings. By numerically evolving a network of cosmic strings we
generate full-sky CMB temperature anisotropy maps. Based on maps, we
compute the anisotropy power spectrum for multipole moments . By
comparing with the observed temperature anisotropy, we set the normalization
for the cosmic string mass-per-unit-length , obtaining , which is consistent with all other
observational constraints on cosmic strings. We demonstrate that the anisotropy
pattern is consistent with a Gaussian random field on large angular scales.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX, two postscript files, also available at
http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/defects/ to appear in Physical Review
Letters, 23 September 199
Limits on Stellar Companions to Exoplanet Host Stars With Eccentric Planets
Though there are now many hundreds of confirmed exoplanets known, the
binarity of exoplanet host stars is not well understood. This is particularly
true of host stars which harbor a giant planet in a highly eccentric orbit
since these are more likely to have had a dramatic dynamical history which
transferred angular momentum to the planet. Here we present observations of
four exoplanet host stars which utilize the excellent resolving power of the
Differential Speckle Survey Instrument (DSSI) on the Gemini North telescope.
Two of the stars are giants and two are dwarfs. Each star is host to a giant
planet with an orbital eccentricity > 0.5 and whose radial velocity data
contain a trend in the residuals to the Keplerian orbit fit. These observations
rule out stellar companions 4-8 magnitudes fainter than the host star at
passbands of 692nm and 880nm. The resolution and field-of-view of the
instrument result in exclusion radii of 0.05-1.4 arcsecs which excludes stellar
companions within several AU of the host star in most cases. We further provide
new radial velocities for the HD 4203 system which confirm that the linear
trend previously observed in the residuals is due to an additional planet.
These results place dynamical constraints on the source of the planet's
eccentricities, constraints on additional planetary companions, and informs the
known distribution of multiplicity amongst exoplanet host stars.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables, accepted to Ap
Atomic Hydrogen and Star Formation in the Bridge/Ring Interacting Galaxy Pair NGC 7714/7715 (Arp 284)
We present high spatial resolution 21 cm HI maps of the interacting galaxy
pair NGC 7714/7715. We detect a massive (2 x 10**9 M(sun)) HI bridge connecting
the galaxies that is parallel to but offset from the stellar bridge. A chain of
HII regions traces the gaseous bridge, with H-alpha peaks near but not on the
HI maxima. An HI tidal tail is also detected to the east of the smaller galaxy
NGC 7715, similarly offset from a stellar tail. The strong partial stellar ring
on the eastern side of NGC 7714 has no HI counterpart, but on the opposite side
of NGC 7714 there is a 10**9 M(sun) HI loop 11 kpc in radius. Within the NGC
7714 disk, clumpy HI gas is observed associated with star formation regions.
Redshifted HI absorption is detected towards the starburst nucleus. We compare
the observed morphology and gas kinematics with gas dynamical models in which a
low-mass companion has an off-center prograde collision with the outer disk of
a larger galaxy. These simulations suggest that the bridge in NGC 7714/7715 is
a hybrid between bridges seen in systems like M51 and the purely gaseous
`splash' bridges found in ring galaxies like the Cartwheel. The offset between
the stars and gas in the bridge may be due to dissipative cloud-cloud
collisions occuring during the impact of the two gaseous disks.Comment: 31 pages, Latex, 11 figures, to be published in the July 10, 1997
issue of the Astrophysical Journa
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