2,881 research outputs found
Quality interoperability within digital libraries: the DL.org perspective
Quality is the most dynamic aspect of DLs, and becomes even more complex with respect to interoperability. This paper formalizes the research motivations and hypotheses on quality interoperability conducted by the Quality Working Group within the EU-funded project DL.org (<a href="http://www.dlorg.eu">http://www.dlorg.eu/</a>). After providing a multi-level interoperability framework – adopted by DL.org - the authors illustrate key-research points and
approaches on the way to the interoperability of DLs quality, grounding them in the DELOS Reference Model. By applying the DELOS Reference Model Quality Concept Map to their interoperability motivating scenario, the authors subsequently present the two main research outcomes of their investigation - the Quality Core Model and the Quality Interoperability Survey
State space c-reductions for concurrent systems in rewriting logic
We present c-reductions, a state space reduction technique.
The rough idea is to exploit some equivalence relation on states (possibly capturing system regularities) that preserves behavioral properties, and explore the induced quotient system. This is done by means of a canonizer
function, which maps each state into a (non necessarily unique) canonical representative of its equivalence class. The approach exploits the expressiveness of rewriting logic and its realization in Maude to enjoy several advantages over similar approaches: exibility and simplicity in
the definition of the reductions (supporting not only traditional symmetry reductions, but also name reuse and name abstraction); reasoning support for checking and proving correctness of the reductions; and automatization
of the reduction infrastructure via Maude's meta-programming
features. The approach has been validated over a set of representative case studies, exhibiting comparable results with respect to other tools
Echoes of multiple outbursts of Sagittarius A* revealed by Chandra
The relatively rapid spatial and temporal variability of the X-ray radiation
from some molecular clouds near the Galactic center shows that this emission
component is due to the reflection of X-rays generated by a source that was
luminous in the past, most likely the central supermassive black hole,
Sagittarius A*. Studying the evolution of the molecular cloud reflection
features is therefore a key element to reconstruct Sgr A*'s past activity. The
aim of the present work is to study this emission on small angular scales in
order to characterize the source outburst on short time scales. We use Chandra
high-resolution data collected from 1999 to 2011 to study the most rapid
variations detected so far, those of clouds between 5' and 20' from Sgr A*
towards positive longitudes. Our systematic spectral-imaging analysis of the
reflection emission, notably of the Fe Kalpha line at 6.4 keV and its
associated 4-8 keV continuum, allows us to characterize the variations down to
15" angular scale and 1-year time scale. We reveal for the first time abrupt
variations of few years only and in particular a short peaked emission, with a
factor of 10 increase followed by a comparable decrease, that propagates along
the dense filaments of the Bridge cloud. This 2-year peaked feature contrasts
with the slower 10-year linear variations we reveal in all the other molecular
structures of the region. Based on column density constraints, we argue that
these two different behaviors are unlikely to be due to the same illuminating
event. The variations are likely due to a highly variable active phase of Sgr
A* sometime within the past few hundred years, characterized by at least two
luminous outbursts of a few-year time scale and during which the Sgr A*
luminosity went up to at least 10^39 erg/s.Comment: 17 pages, 16 figures, Accepted for publication in Astronomy &
Astrophysic
Maude: specification and programming in rewriting logic
Maude is a high-level language and a high-performance system supporting executable specification and declarative programming in rewriting logic. Since rewriting logic contains equational logic, Maude also supports equational specification and programming in its sublanguage of functional modules and theories. The underlying equational logic chosen for Maude is membership equational logic, that has sorts, subsorts, operator overloading, and partiality definable by membership and equality conditions. Rewriting logic is reflective, in the sense of being able to express its own metalevel at the object level. Reflection is systematically exploited in Maude endowing the language with powerful metaprogramming capabilities, including both user-definable module operations and declarative strategies to guide the deduction process. This paper explains and illustrates with examples the main concepts of Maude's language design, including its underlying logic, functional, system and object-oriented modules, as well as parameterized modules, theories, and views. We also explain how Maude supports reflection, metaprogramming and internal strategies. The paper outlines the principles underlying the Maude system implementation, including its semicompilation techniques. We conclude with some remarks about applications, work on a formal environment for Maude, and a mobile language extension of Maude
Variation of the X-ray non-thermal emission in the Arches cloud
The origin of the iron fluorescent line at 6.4 keV from an extended region
surrounding the Arches cluster is debated and the non-variability of this
emission up to 2009 has favored the low-energy cosmic-ray origin over a
possible irradiation by hard X-rays. By probing the variability of the Arches
cloud non-thermal emission in the most recent years, including a deep
observation in 2012, we intend to discriminate between the two competing
scenarios. We perform a spectral fit of XMM-Newton observations collected from
2000 to 2013 in order to build the Arches cloud lightcurve corresponding to
both the neutral Fe Kalpha line and the X-ray continuum emissions. We reveal a
30% flux drop in 2012, detected with more than 4 sigma significance for both
components. This implies that a large fraction of the studied non-thermal
emission is due to the reflection of an X-ray transient source.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS Letter
Absorption lines from magnetically-driven winds in X-ray binaries
High resolution X-ray spectra of black hole X-ray binaries (BHBs) show
blueshifted absorption lines from disk winds which seem to be equatorial. Winds
occur in the Softer (disk-dominated) states of the outburst and are less
prominent or absent in the Harder (power-law dominated) states. We use
self-similar magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) accretion-ejection models to explain
the disk winds in BHBs. In our models, the density at the base of the outflow
from the accretion disk is not a free parameter, but is determined by solving
the full set of dynamical MHD equations. Thus the physical properties of the
outflow are controlled by the global structure of the disk. We studied
different MHD solutions characterized by different values of (a) the disk
aspect ratio () and (b) the ejection efficiency (). We use two
kinds of MHD solutions depending on the absence (cold solution) or presence
(warm solution) of heating at the disk surface. Such heating could be from e.g.
dissipation of energy due to MHD turbulence in the disk or from illumination.
We use each of these MHD solutions to predict the physical parameters of an
outflow; put limits on the ionization parameter (), column density and
timescales, motivated by observational results; and thus select regions within
the outflow which are consistent with the observed winds. The cold MHD
solutions cannot account for winds due to their low ejection efficiency. But
warm solutions can explain the observed physical quantities in the wind because
they can have sufficiently high values of (, implying larger
mass loading at the base of the outflow). Further from our thermodynamic
equilibrium curve analysis for the outflowing gas, we found that in the Hard
state a range of is thermodynamically unstable, and had to be excluded.
This constrain made it impossible to have any wind at all, in the Hard state.Comment: 16 Pages, 10 figures in the main body and 4 figures in the appendix.
Accepted for publication in A&
Towards Generic Monitors for Object-Oriented Real-Time Maude Specifications
Non-Functional Properties (NFPs) are crucial in the design of software. Specification of systems is used in the very first phases of the software development process for the stakeholders to make decisions on which architecture or platform to use. These specifications may be an- alyzed using different formalisms and techniques, simulation being one of them. During a simulation, the relevant data involved in the anal- ysis of the NFPs of interest can be measured using monitors. In this work, we show how monitors can be parametrically specified so that the instrumentation of specifications to be monitored can be automatically performed. We prove that the original specification and the automati- cally obtained specification with monitors are bisimilar by construction. This means that the changes made on the original system by adding monitors do not affect its behavior. This approach allows us to have a library of possible monitors that can be safely added to analyze different properties, possibly on different objects of our systems, at will.Universidad de Málaga, Campus de Excelencia Internacional AndalucĂa Tech. Spanish MINECO/FEDER project TIN2014-52034-R, NSF Grant CNS 13-19109
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