From social machines to social protocols:Software engineering foundations for sociotechnical systems

The overarching vision of social machines is to facilitate social processes by having computers provide administrative support. We conceive of a social machine as a sociotechnical system (STS): a software-supported system in which autonomous principals such as humans and organizations interact to exchange information and services. Existing approaches for social machines emphasize the technical aspects and inadequately support the meanings of social processes, leaving them informally realized in human interactions. We posit that a fundamental rethinking is needed to incorporate accountability, essential for addressing the openness of the Web and the autonomy of its principals. We introduce Interaction-Oriented Software Engineering (IOSE) as a paradigm expressly suited to capturing the social basis of STSs. Motivated by promoting openness and autonomy, IOSE focuses not on implementation but on social protocols, specifying how social relationships, characterizing the accountability of the concerned parties, progress as they interact. Motivated by providing computational support, IOSE adopts the accountability representation to capture the meaning of a social machine’s states and transitions. We demonstrate IOSE via examples drawn from healthcare. We reinterpret the classical software engineering (SE) principles for the STS setting and show how IOSE is better suited than traditional software engineering for supporting social processes. The contribution of this paper is a new paradigm for STSs, evaluated via conceptual analysis

Splee:A declarative information-based language for multiagent interaction protocols

The Blindingly Simple Protocol Language (BSPL) is a novel information-based approach for specifying interaction protocols that can be enacted by agents in a fully decentralized manner via asynchronous messaging. We introduce Splee, an extension of BSPL. The extensions fall into two broad categories: multicast and roles. In Splee, a role binding is information that is dynamically generated during protocol enactment, potentially as the content (payload) of communication between two agents. Multicast communication is the idea that a message is sent to a set of agents. The two categories of extensions are interconnected via novel features such as set roles (the idea that a role binding can be a set of agents) and subroles (the idea that agents playing a role must be a subset of agents playing another role). We give the formal semantics of Splee and give small model characterizations of the safety and liveness of Splee protocols. We also introduce the pragmatic idea of query attachments for messages. Query attachments take advantage of Splee's information-orientation, and can help restrict the information (parameter bindings) communicated in a message

An Evaluation of Communication Protocol Languages for Engineering Multiagent Systems

Communication protocols are central to engineering decentralized multiagent systems. Modern protocol languages are typically formal and address aspects of decentralization, such as asynchrony. However, modern languages differ in important ways in their basic abstractions and operational assumptions. This diversity makes a comparative evaluation of protocol languages a challenging task. We contribute a rich evaluation of diverse and modern protocol languages. Among the selected languages, Scribble is based on session types; Trace-C and Trace-F on trace expressions; HAPN on hierarchical state machines, and BSPL on information causality. Our contribution is four-fold. One, we contribute important criteria for evaluating protocol languages. Two, for each criterion, we compare the languages on the basis of whether they are able to specify elementary protocols that go to the heart of the criterion. Three, for each language, we map our findings to a canonical architecture style for multiagent systems, highlighting where the languages depart from the architecture. Four, we identify design principles for protocol languages as guidance for future research

Magneto-mechanical interplay in spin-polarized point contacts

We investigate the interplay between magnetic and structural dynamics in ferromagnetic atomic point contacts. In particular, we look at the effect of the atomic relaxation on the energy barrier for magnetic domain wall migration and, reversely, at the effect of the magnetic state on the mechanical forces and structural relaxation. We observe changes of the barrier height due to the atomic relaxation up to 200%, suggesting a very strong coupling between the structural and the magnetic degrees of freedom. The reverse interplay is weak, i.e. the magnetic state has little effect on the structural relaxation at equilibrium or under non-equilibrium, current-carrying conditions.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Iodization status of common salt in districts of western Uttar Pradesh

Research Problem: What is the amount of iodine in common salt samples. Objective: To estimate theamountof iodine in common salt samples. Study Design: Population based cross - sectional study. Setting: Randomly selected six districts of western U.P. Sample: Two salt samples randomly collected from house holds of each block area of the district. Sample Size: 152 salt samples. Study Variables: Iodine content in salt samples. Statistical Analysis: By chi - square test. Result: Unsatisfactory level of iodine was found in 52% of the salt samples. Crystal salt samples were more poorly iodized (70.9%) than powder salt samples (41.2%). Recommendations: Strict enforcement of ban on the sale of non-iodised salt

Protocols over Things:A Decentralized Programming Model for the Internet of Things

Current programming models for developing Internet of Things (IoT) applications are logically centralized and ill-suited for most IoT applications. We contribute Protocols over Things, a decentralized programming model that represents an IoT application via a protocol between the parties involved and provides improved performance over network-level delivery guarantees

Terahertz Channel Characterization Inside the Human Skin for Nano-Scale Body-Centric Networks

This paper focuses on the development of a novel radio channel model inside the human skin at the terahertz range, which will enable the interaction among potential nano-machines operating in the inter cellular areas of the human skin. Thorough studies are performed on the attenuation of electromagnetic waves inside the human skin, while taking into account the frequency of operation, distance between the nano-machines and number of sweat ducts. A novel channel model is presented for communication of nano-machines inside the human skin and its validation is performed by varying the aforementioned parameters with a reasonable accuracy. The statistics of error prediction between simulated and modeled data are: mean (μ)= 0.6 dB and standard deviation (σ)= 0.4 dB, which indicates the high accuracy of the prediction model as compared with measurement data from simulation. In addition, the results of proposed channel model are compared with terhaertz time-domain spectroscopy based measurement of skin sample and the statistics of error prediction in this case are: μ = 2.10 dB and σ = 6.23 dB, which also validates the accuracy of proposed model. Results in this paper highlight the issues and related challenges while characterizing the communication in such a medium, thus paving the way towards novel research activities devoted to the design and the optimization of advanced applications in the healthcare domain

Aging degradation of cast stainless steels: Effects on mechanical properties

A program is being conducted to investigate the significance of in-service embrittlement of cast duplex stainless steels under light-water operating conditions. Mechanical property data are presented from Charpy-impact, tensile, and J-R curve tests for several heats of cast stainless steel aged up to 10,000 h at 450, 400, 350, 320, and 290/sup 0/C. The results indicate that thermal aging increases the tensile strength and decreases the impact energy, J/sub IC/, and tearing modulus of the steels. Also, the ductile-to-brittle transition curve shifts to higher temperatures. The fracture toughness results are consistent with the Charpy-impact data, i.e., the relative reduction in J/sub IC/ is similar to the relative decrease in impact energy. The ferrite content and concentration of C in the steel have a strong effect on the overall process of low-temperature embrittlement. The low-carbon CF-3 steels are the most resistant and Mo-containing CF-8M steels are most susceptible to embrittlement. Weakening of the ferrite/austenite phase boundaries by carbide precipitates has a significant effect on the kinetics and extent of embrittlement of the high-carbon CF-8 and CF-8M steels, particularly after aging at temperatures greater than or equal to400/sup 0/C. The influence of N content and distribution of ferrite on loss of toughness are discussed. The data also indicate that existing correlations do not accurately represent the embrittlement behavior over the temperature range 280 to 450/sup 0/C, i.e., extrapolation of high-temperature data to reactor temperatures may not be valid for some compositions of cast stainless steel