The EEE-05 Challenge: A New Web Service Discovery and Composition Competition

With growing acceptance of service-oriented computing, an emerging area of research is the investigation of technologies that will enable the discovery and composition of web services. Using the same approach as the popular Trading Agent Competitions (TAC), the EEE-05 Web Services Challenge is the first event geared towards the management of web services. The competition solicits industry and academic researchers that develop software components and/or intelligent agents that have the ability to discover pertinent web services and also compose them to create higher-level capabilities. This paper describes the competition details for this first year and expectations for future events

The heat flow, GAF, and SL(2;R)

We establish basic properties of the heat flow on entire holomorphic functions that have order at most 2. We then look specifically at the action of the heat flow on the Gaussian analytic function (GAF). We show that applying the heat flow to a GAF and then rescaling and multiplying by an exponential of a quadratic function gives another GAF. It follows that the zeros of the GAF are invariant in distribution under the heat flow, up to a simple rescaling. We then show that the zeros of the GAF evolve under the heat flow approximately along straight lines, with an error whose distribution is independent of the starting point. Finally, we connect the heat flow on the GAF to the metaplectic representation of the double cover of the group $SL(2;\mathbb{R}).$Comment: 46 pages, 2 figure

Developing High Entropy Alloys for Nuclear Applications

High entropy alloys (HEAs) were developed for their desirability of strength, hardness, and corrosion, wear, and radiation resistance. This makes them ideal for nuclear applications in advanced reactors. High entropy alloys are characterized as alloys containing at least 5 principal elements, each with an atomic percentage between 5 and 35% [1]. A process for fabrication and characterization of these alloys entails ball milling and spark plasma sintering (SPS), then characterization tools such as x-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). [1] D. B. Miracle and O. N. Senkov, “A critical review of high entropy alloys and related concepts,” Acta materialia, vol. 122, pp. 448-511, 2017

Ordovician 40Ar/39Ar phengite ages from the blueschist-facies Ondor Sum subduction-accretion complex (Inner Mongolia) and implications for the early Paleozoic history of continental blocks in China and adjacent areas

We obtained 453.2 ± 1.8 Ma and 449.4 ± 1.8 Ma (2{sigma}) laser step-heating 40Ar/39Ar plateau ages for phengite from quartzite mylonites from the blueschist-facies Ondor Sum subduction-accretion complex in Inner Mongolia (northern China). These ages are within error of the inverse isochron ages calculated using the plateau steps and the weighted mean ages of total fusion of single grains. The compositional change from glaucophane in the cores to crossite in the rims of blue amphiboles, as revealed by electron microprobe analysis, points to decompression, probably caused by progressive exhumation of the subducted material. The Late Ordovician ages were not affected by excess argon incorporation because in all likelihood the oceanic sediments were wet on arrival at the trench and free of older detrital mica. The ca. 450 Ma ages are, hence, interpreted as the time of crystallization during mylonitization under high fluid activity at fairly low temperatures. This means that accretion of the quartzite mylonite unit occured about 200 Ma before final closure of the Paleo-Asian Ocean, amalgamation of the Siberian, Tarim and North China cratons, and formation of the end-Permian Solonker suture zone. We argue that the Early Paleozoic evolution of the Ondor Sum complex occurred along the northeastern Cimmerian margin of Gondwana, which was composed of micro-continents fringed by subduction-accretion complexes and island arcs. The later evolution took place during the building of the Eurasian continent following middle Devonian and younger rifting along the East Gondwanan margin and northward drift of the detached North China craton. An extensive review shows that this type of two-stage scenario probably also applies to the geodynamic evolution of other micro-continents like, South China, Tarim, a number of Kazakh terranes, Alashan, Qaidam and Kunlun, as well as South Kitakami and correlatives in Japan, and probably Indochina. Like the North China craton, these were bordered by Early Paleozoic subduction-accretion complexes, island arcs or contained calc-alkaline volcanic margins, like for example, the central Tienshan, North Qinling, North Qaidam-Altun, North Qilian and Kunlun belts in China, as well as the Oeyama and Miyamori ophiolites and Matsugadaira-Motai blueschist belt of Japan and the dismembered Sergeevka ophiolite of the southern part of the Russian Far East. This implies that a vast orogenic system, comprising an archipelago of micro-continents, seems to have existed along the Cimmerian margin of East Gondwana in Early Paleozoic time in which the ultrahigh-pressure metamorphism that characterizes the early evolution of many of the Asian micro-continents occurred