Temporalizing Epistemic Logic L-DINF

Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) are a technology that has many fields of application, which extend also to human sciences and where Computational Logic has been widely applied. In this paper, we join together two of our long-lasting lines of work in this field. In particular, we introduce time and time intervals into the epistemic logic L-DINF, that copes with group dynamics in MAS

Mitigation of adverse effects on competitiveness and leakage of unilateral EU climate policy: An assessment of policy instruments

The European Union (EU) has developed a strategy to mitigate climate change by cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and fostering low carbon technologies. However, the risk of implementing unilateral policies is that distortive effects are generated at the global scale affecting world energy prices, international competitiveness and the geographical allocation of carbon intensive production processes. Using a dynamic CGE model,we assess the rate of carbon leakage and adverse impacts on competitiveness in a number of scenarios over the period2010–2050. According to the model results, we highlight two major issues. First, in the case of a unilateral EU climate policy, carbon leakage and negative effects on competitiveness are quite serious. Anti-leakage measures can only mitigate leakage and adverse economic impacts on competitiveness in a limited way. On the contrary, an optimality analysis addressing the environmental effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and political feasibility of alternative policy solutions reveals that the EU long termdecarbonisation strategy by investing in energy efficiencyand renewable energy might ensure protection of vulnerable manufacturing activitieswhile enhancing the competitiveness of technologically-advanced industries

Velocity fluctuations in a one dimensional Inelastic Maxwell model

We consider the velocity fluctuations of a system of particles described by the Inelastic Maxwell Model. The present work extends the methods, previously employed to obtain the one-particle velocity distribution function, to the study of the two particle correlations. Results regarding both the homogeneous cooling process and the steady state driven regime are presented. In particular we obtain the form of the pair correlation function in the scaling region of the homogeneous cooling process and show that some of its moments diverge. This fact has repercussions on the behavior of the energy fluctuations of the model.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure, to be published on Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment

Single File Diffusion enhancement in a fluctuating modulated 1D channel

We show that the diffusion of a single file of particles moving in a fluctuating modulated 1D channel is enhanced with respect to the one in a bald pipe. This effect, induced by the fluctuations of the modulation, is favored by the incommensurability between the channel potential modulation and the moving file periodicity. This phenomenon could be of importance in order to optimize the critical current in superconductors, in particular in the case where mobile vortices move in 1D channels designed by adapted patterns of pinning sites.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

A dynamic assessment of instrument interaction and timing alternatives in the EU low-carbon policy mix design

The European Union low-carbon strategy includes a range of complementary policies. Potential interactions between instruments and different timing of their implementation can influence the cost and likelihood of achieving the targets. We test the interactions between the three main pillars of the European Union strategy through a dynamic Computable General Equilibrium model (GDynEP) with a time horizon of 2050. Main results are: i) going for the unilateral European Union carbon mitigation target without any complementary technological policy will produce large economic losses; ii) by investing in clean energy technologies (energy efficiency and renewable energy) with a carbon tax revenue recycling mechanism, these losses will decrease substantially; iii) when complementary clean energy technology policies are implemented, the optimal timing of binding targets changes; iv) the higher the public support to clean energy technologies, the larger the economic gains in early adoption of challenging abatement targets. © 2018 Elsevier LtdWe acknowledge financial support received by the EU D.G. Research (research project “CECILIA2050 — Choosing efficient combinations of policy instruments for low-carbon development and innovation to achieve Europ

Twinning automata and regular expressions for string static analysis

In this paper we formalize and prove the soundness of Tarsis, a new abstract domain based on the abstract interpretation theory that approximates string values through finite state automata. The main novelty of Tarsis is that it works over an alphabet of strings instead of single characters. On the one hand, such approach requires a more complex and refined definition of the widening operator, and the abstract semantics of string operators. On the other hand, it is in position to obtain strictly more precise results than than state-of-the-art approaches. We implemented a prototype of Tarsis, and we applied it on some case studies taken from some of the most popular Java libraries manipulating string values. The experimental results confirm that Tarsis is in position to obtain strictly more precise results than existing analyses