Expressive Policy Analysis with Enhanced System Dynamicity

Despite several research studies, the effective analysis of policy based systems remains a significant challenge. Policy analysis should at least (i) be expressive (ii) take account of obligations and authorizations, (iii) include a dynamic system model, and (iv) give useful diagnostic information. We present a logic-based policy analysis framework which satisfies these requirements, showing how many significant policy-related properties can be analysed, and we give details of a prototype implementation. Copyright 2009 ACM

University–industry cooperation for supporting sector restructure: wood industry case study

The central aim of this article is to demonstrate how a University-Industry European funded project investigated and proposed best practices for restructuring the wood processing sector in 5 EU countries with a view to reduce the consumption of energy in processing wood. The study refers to the cooperation between universities and industries and the presentation of a successful experience in which the joint action of individual institutions led to technological gains for both parties. The data was collected from 600 companies. The results obtained showed not only the efficiency of the joint research but also the success of the cooperation and the identification of the best practices of new approaches raised in recent studies. Thus, by studying the experience of these institutions in technological cooperation, we can see that the productivity and efficiency of the cooperation between the university and the company open up possibilities for contributing to the technological development of the country

A goal-based approach to policy refinement

As the interest in using policy-based approaches for systems management grows, it is becoming increasingly important to develop methods for performing analysis and refinement of policy specifications. Although this is an area that researchers have devoted some attention to, none of the proposed solutions address the issue of deriving implementable policies from high-level goals. A key part of the solution to this problem is having the ability to identify the operations, available on the underlying system, which can achieve a given goal. This paper presents an approach by which a formal representation of a system, based on the Event Calculus, can be used in conjunction with abductive reasoning techniques to derive the sequence of operations that will allow a given system to achieve a desired goal. Additionally it outlines how this technique might be used for providing tool support and partial automation for policy refinement. Building on previous work on using formal techniques for policy analysis, the approach presented here applies a transformation of both policy and system behaviour specifications into a formal notation that is based on Event Calculus. Finally, it shows how the overall process could be used in conjunction with UML modelling and illustrates this by means of an example. 1

Economic assessment of pulse crop rotations in western Canada

Non-Peer ReviewedPulse crops have become essential to farming practices in the Northern Great Plains, but little has been studied how rotation systems with different crop mixes affect the economic returns. Initiated in 2010, a four-year crop rotation study was repeated at Swift Current, Saskatchewan, and Brooks, Alberta to identify effective crop rotation length and frequency of pulses in a rotation and to evaluate the economic returns for individual crop and for the entire crop rotations in western Canada. Rotation systems that included one or two lentil crops in the 4-year sequence lead to greater and consistent revenue gains at all sites. Wheat monoculture resulted in the lowest net return due to higher cost and lower product prices compared with other crops in the rotation

Boundary element based multiresolution shape optimisation in electrostatics

We consider the shape optimisation of high-voltage devices subject to electrostatic field equations by combining fast boundary elements with multiresolution subdivision surfaces. The geometry of the domain is described with subdivision surfaces and different resolutions of the same geometry are used for optimisation and analysis. The primal and adjoint problems are discretised with the boundary element method using a sufficiently fine control mesh. For shape optimisation the geometry is updated starting from the coarsest control mesh with increasingly finer control meshes. The multiresolution approach effectively prevents the appearance of non-physical geometry oscillations in the optimised shapes. Moreover, there is no need for mesh regeneration or smoothing during the optimisation due to the absence of a volume mesh. We present several numerical experiments and one industrial application to demonstrate the robustness and versatility of the developed approach.We gratefully acknowledge the support provided by the EU commission through the FP7 Marie Curie IAPP project CASOPT (PIAP-GA-2008-230224). K.B. and F.C. thank for the additional support provided by EPSRC through #EP/G008531/1. J.Z. thanks for the support provided by the European Regional Development Fund in the IT4Innovations Centre of Excellence project (CZ.1.05/1.1.00/02.0070) and by the project SPOMECH – Creating a Multidisciplinary R&D Team for Reliable Solution of Mechanical Problems, reg. no. CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0070 within the Operational Programme ‘Education for Competitiveness’ funded by the Structural Funds of the European Union and the state budget of the Czech Republic. Special thanks to Andreas Blaszczyk from the ABB Corporate Research Center Switzerland for fruitful discussions and for providing the industrial applications.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcp.2015.05.01

Development of a rapid environmental assessment methodology for roads sector rehabilitation projects

The concern for the environment is ever growing and counter measures are also taken by manycountries to minimize environmental impacts arising from developmental activities. One tool utilised toensure that developments are sustainable is Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) which hasbeen a mandatory requirement in Sri Lanka since 1993. However, due to considerable time taken bythe EIA process particularly for extensive projects such as road sector projects concerns have beenraised as to the delays caused by the process which in certain instances might even cause loss offoreign funds. Although detailed assessments are required in some cases it is not always true. Roadrehabilitation projects do not fall into the category of prescribed projects of the National EnvironmentalAct unless sensitive areas are involved and resettlement of more than 100 families are involved.However, foreign funding agencies generally require an environmental assessment of even suchprojects prior to approving of funding which generally cause delays since environmental assessorstend to follow tile same pattern of assessment for all projects regardless of the scope. Numerousmethods have evolved over the years to conduct EIAs some ct'which address environmental impact assessment of sectoral projects particularly water resource development projects which are ratherconvenient to use. However thus far such methods have not been developed for road sector projects.The present study was conducted to develop a Rapid Environment Assessment (REA) technique forthe Sri Lankan road rehabilitation projects where such a tool is yet to immerge. The REA was designedfrom the information collected from literature survey, questionnaire surveys of affected communities,field observations and subject experts' interviews. Three actual rehabilitation projects were studiedfor this purpose. Based on the information first the activities relevant to all the road rehabilitationprojects were listed with the assistance received from the field engineers. Then those activities whichhave no significant impacts were taken out keeping only the activities causing impacts forconsideration.The designed tool in this study is armed with both primary and secondary impacts whichcan arise from specific activities of road rehabilitation projects as well with proposed mitigatory measureswhich can minimize these impacts. The REA is not only comprehensive but also user friendly asactivities and impacts are predetermined and linked to each other so that the users do not have toprepare their own checklists of activities or environmental aspects. It's handy and small. It's generalin usage and could be used in any site of road rehabilitation projects. It's concise as only those activitieswith significant impacts are chosen and included.From surveys it was also discovered that to avoid unnecessary oppositions and social commotion,which would hinder the rehabilitation projects compensation should be decided and granted at theplanning stage itself. It is also highly recommended that a strong monitoring system is utilized. If anyof the proposed mitigatory measures is not effective in neutralizing the impacts, a search for newmeasures is recommended and REA is to be updated accordingly. As REA is not available for roadrehabilitation projects at present in Sri Lanka the tool designed in my study could be taken for futureroad rehabilitation projects to minimize the disadvantages of ElA. However, it should note that theREA is to be used only by experts in order to be effective and accurate. 

Ultra compact spectrometer apparatus and method using photonic crystals

The present invention is directed to methods of photonic crystal formation, and to methods and apparatus for using such photonic crystals, particularly in conjunction with detector arrays. Photonic crystal parameters and detector array parameters are compared to optimize the selection and orientation of a photonic crystal shape. A photonic crystal is operatively positioned relative to a plurality of light sensors. The light sensors can be separated by a pitch distance and positioned within one half of the pitch distance of an exit surface of the photonic crystals

nBn and pBp infrared detectors with graded barrier layer, graded absorption layer, or chirped strained layer super lattice absorption layer

An nBn detector is described where for some embodiments the barrier layer has a concentration gradient, for some embodiments the absorption layer has a concentration gradient, and for some embodiments the absorption layer is a chirped strained layer super lattice. The use of a graded barrier or absorption layer, or the use of a chirped strained layer super lattice for the absorption layer, allows for design of the energy bands so that the valence band may be aligned across the device. Other embodiments are described and claimed

A formal framework for policy analysis

We present a formal, logical framework for the representation and analysis of an expressive class of authorization and obligation policies. Basic concepts of the language and operational model are given, and details of the representation are defined, with an attention to how different classes of policies can be written in our framework. We show how complex dependencies amonst policy rules can be represented, and illustrate how the formalization of policies is joined to a dynamic depiction of system behaviour. Algorithmically, we use a species of abductive, constraint logic programming to analyse for the holding of a number of interesting properties of policies (coverage, modality conflict, equivalence of policies, etc.). We describe one implementation of our ideas, and conclude with remarks on related work and future research