357 research outputs found
A Formal Analysis of a Business Contract Language
This paper presents a formal system for reasoning about violations of obligations in contracts. The system is based on the formalism for the representation of contrary-to-duty obligations. These are the obligations that take place when other obligations are violated as typically applied to penalties in contracts. The paper shows how this formalism can be mapped onto the key policy concepts of a contract specification language, called Business Contract Language (BCL), previously developed to express contract conditions for run time contract monitoring. The aim of this mapping is to establish a formal underpinning for this key subset of BCL
A people-oriented paradigm for smart cities
Most works in the literature agree on considering the Internet of Things (IoT) as the base technology to collect information related to smart cities. This information is usually offered as open data for its analysis, and to elaborate statistics or provide services which improve the management of the city, making it more efficient and more comfortable to live in. However, it is not possible to actually improve the quality of life of smart cities’ inhabitants if there is no direct information about them and their experiences. To address this problem, we propose using a social and mobile computation model, called the Internet of People (IoP) which empowers smartphones to recollect information about their users, analyze it to obtain knowledge about their habits, and provide this knowledge as a service creating a collaborative information network. Combining IoT and IoP, we allow the smart city to dynamically adapt its services to the needs of its citizens, promoting their welfare as the main objective of the city.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional AndalucĂa Tech
Events, Neural Systems and Time Series
Different types of events occurring in computer, neural, business, and environmental systems are discussed. Though events in these different domains do differ, there are also important commonalities. We discuss the issues arising from automating complex event handling systems
Soliton model for proton conductivity in Langmuir films
A soliton model for proton conductivity in Langmuir films is presented. The
model contains three real scalar fields describing the hydrogen involved in the
conduction, the hydrophilic head of the Langmuir film, and the water. Soliton
solutions that describe proton motion along the hydrogen bonds are found. Under
compression of the film, the distance between the minima of the proton
potential and the strength of the hydrogen bonds between the film molecule and
the water are changed. Such changes increase the probability of soliton
creation. The model presented allows proton conductivity data in Langmuir films
to be explained.Comment: Revtex, 07 pages, 2 eps figures, to be published in Chem. Phys. Let
Artificial Intelligence
Contains research objectives and reports on five research projects.Computation Center, M.I.T
Expressing Confidence in Models and in Model Transformation Elements.
The expression and management of uncertainty, both in the information and in the operations that manipulate it, is a critical issue in those systems that work with physical environments. Measurement uncertainty can be due to several factors, such as unreliable data sources, tolerance in the measurements, or the inability to determine if a certain event has actually happened or not. In particular, this contribution focuses on the expression of one kind of uncertainty, namely the confidence on the model elements, i.e., the degree of belief that we have on their occurrence, and on how such an uncertainty can be managed and propagated through model transformations, whose rules can also be subject to uncertainty
Self-diffusion in granular gases
The coefficient of self-diffusion for a homogeneously cooling granular gas
changes significantly if the impact-velocity dependence of the restitution
coefficient is taken into account. For the case of a constant
the particles spread logarithmically slow with time, whereas the
velocity dependent coefficient yields a power law time-dependence. The impact
of the difference in these time dependences on the properties of a freely
cooling granular gas is discussed.Comment: 6 pages, no figure
Influence of commercial formulation on leaching of four pesticides through soil
Studies with small soil columns (2 cm i.d. x 5.4 cm depth) compared leaching of four pesticides added either as technical material or as commercial formulations. Pesticides were selected to give a gradient of solubility in water between 7 and 93 mg L-1, comprising azoxystrobin (emulsifiable concentrate, EC, and suspension concentrate, SC), cyproconazole (SC), propyzamide (SC) and triadimenol (EC). Columns of sandy loam soil were leached with 6 pore volumes of 0.01M CaCl2 either 1 or 7 days after treatment. Separate experiments evaluated leaching of triadimenol to full breakthrough following addition of 18 pore volumes of 0.01M CaCl2. The mass of pesticide leached from columns treated with commercial formulation was significantly larger than that from columns treated with technical material for all compounds studied and for both leaching intervals (two-sided t-tests, p<0.001). This difference was conserved when triadimenol was leached to full breakthrough with 79 ± 1.2 and 61 ± 3.1% of applied triadimenol leached from columns treated with formulated and technical material, respectively. There were highly significant effects of formulation for all pesticides (two-way ANOVA, p<0.001), whereas leaching interval was only significant for azoxystrobin EC formulation and cyproconazole (p <0.001 and 0.021, respectively) with greater leaching when irrigation commenced 1 day after treatment. Leaching of azoxystrobin increased in the order technical material (6.0% of applied pesticide) < SC formulation (8.5-9.1% of applied) < EC formulation (15.8-21.0% of applied). The relative difference between leaching of formulated and technical pesticide increased with pesticide solubility in water, increasing from a factor of 1.4 for the SC formulation of azoystrobin to 4.3 for the SC formulation of triadimenol. Experimental systems differ markedly from field conditions (small columns with intense irrigation). Nevertheless, results indicate the need to consider further the influence of co-formulants in pesticide formulations on behaviour of the active ingredient in soil
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