2,924 research outputs found
Engaging without over-powering: A case study of a FLOSS project
This is the post-print version of the published chapter. The original publication is available at the link below. Copyright @ 2010 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.The role of Open Source Software (OSS) in the e-learning business has become more and more fundamental in the last 10 years, as long as corporate and government organizations have developed their educational and training programs based on OSS out-of-the-box tools. This paper qualitatively documents the decision of the largest UK e-learning provider, the Open University, to adopt the Moodle e-learning system, and how it has been successfully deployed in its site after a multi-million investment. A further quantitative study also provides evidence of how a commercial stakeholder has been engaged with, and produced outputs for, the Moodle community. Lessons learned from this experience by the stakeholders include the crucial factors of contributing to the OSS community, and adapting to an evolving technology. It also becomes evident how commercial partners helped this OSS system to achieve the transition from an “average” OSS system to a successful multi-site, collaborative and community-based OSS project
Europium doping of zincblende GaN by ion implantation
Eu was implanted into high quality cubic (zincblende) GaN (ZB-GaN) layers grown by molecular beam epitaxy. Detailed structural characterization before and after implantation was performed by x-ray diffraction (XRD) and Rutherford backscattering/channeling spectrometry. A low concentration ( direction, while a Ga substitutional site is observed for W-GaN:Eu. The implantation damage in ZB-GaN:Eu could partly be removed by thermal annealing, but an increase in the wurtzite phase fraction was observed at the same time. Cathodoluminescence, photoluminescence (PL), and PL excitation spectroscopy revealed several emission lines which can be attributed to distinct Eu-related optical centers in ZB-GaN and W-GaN inclusions
Approaching the Coverability Problem Continuously
The coverability problem for Petri nets plays a central role in the
verification of concurrent shared-memory programs. However, its high
EXPSPACE-complete complexity poses a challenge when encountered in real-world
instances. In this paper, we develop a new approach to this problem which is
primarily based on applying forward coverability in continuous Petri nets as a
pruning criterion inside a backward coverability framework. A cornerstone of
our approach is the efficient encoding of a recently developed polynomial-time
algorithm for reachability in continuous Petri nets into SMT. We demonstrate
the effectiveness of our approach on standard benchmarks from the literature,
which shows that our approach decides significantly more instances than any
existing tool and is in addition often much faster, in particular on large
instances.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figure
Permeability of self-affine rough fractures
The permeability of two-dimensional fractures with self-affine fractal
roughness is studied via analytic arguments and numerical simulations. The
limit where the roughness amplitude is small compared with average fracture
aperture is analyzed by a perturbation method, while in the opposite case of
narrow aperture, we use heuristic arguments based on lubrication theory.
Numerical simulations, using the lattice Boltzmann method, are used to examine
the complete range of aperture sizes, and confirm the analytic arguments.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure
Partition Functions for the Rigid String and Membrane at Any Temperature
Exact expressions for the partition functions of the rigid string and
membrane at any temperature are obtained in terms of hypergeometric functions.
By using zeta function regularization methods, the results are analytically
continued and written as asymptotic sums of Riemann-Hurwitz zeta functions,
which provide very good numerical approximations with just a few first terms.
This allows to obtain systematic corrections to the results of Polchinski et
al., corresponding to the limits and of
the rigid string, and to analyze the intermediate range of temperatures. In
particular, a way to obtain the Hagedorn temperature for the rigid membrane is
thus found.Comment: 20 pages, LaTeX file, UB-ECM-PF 93/
Assessment Of Localized Seasonal Precipitation Variability In The Upper Middle Catchment Of The Olifants River Basin
ArticleThis study used the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model together with regional climate
downscaled (RCD) data from the CORDEX (Africa project), to assess the local seasonal precipitation
variability in the upper middle catchment (UMC) of the Olifants River basin. The study results, based
on two scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5), showed a wider monthly and seasonal variability of
precipitation. The study also indicated a strong decreasing trend of east-to-west direction of spatial
precipitation, with most precipitation concentrated in the eastern part of the study area. Within the
western part of the UMC, we also noted another decreasing trend of precipitation from south-tonorth
with northern areas of the study area receiving the least amount of precipitation. This study
has also revealed a considerable general reduction of future seasonal precipitation especially in the
mid-term period (2021–2050). The general reduction in future seasonal precipitation, combined with
the increasing temperatures in the area, may exacerbate the drought conditions and reduction in
streamflow of the main river (Olifants) and its tributaries, consequently having a negative impact on
the economic activities in the basin
Assessment of localized seasonal precipitation variability in the upper middle catchment of the Olifants River basin
Abstract: This study used the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model together with regional climate downscaled (RCD) data from the CORDEX (Africa project), to assess the local seasonal precipitation variability in the upper middle catchment (UMC) of the Olifants River basin. The study results, based on two scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5), showed a wider monthly and seasonal variability of precipitation. The study also indicated a strong decreasing trend of east-to-west direction of spatial precipitation, with most precipitation concentrated in the eastern part of the study area. Within the western part of the UMC, we also noted another decreasing trend of precipitation from south-tonorth with northern areas of the study area receiving the least amount of precipitation. This study has also revealed a considerable general reduction of future seasonal precipitation especially in the mid-term period (2021–2050). The general reduction in future seasonal precipitation, combined with the increasing temperatures in the area, may exacerbate the drought conditions and reduction in streamflow of the main river (Olifants) and its tributaries, consequently having a negative impact on the economic activities in the basin
Quark mass correction to the string potential
A consistent method for calculating the interquark potential generated by the
relativistic string with massive ends is proposed. In this approach the
interquark potential in the model of the Nambu--Goto string with point--like
masses at its ends is calculated. At first the calculation is done in the
one--loop approximation and then the variational estimation is performed. The
quark mass correction results in decreasing the critical distance
(deconfinement radius). When quark mass decreases the critical distance also
decreases. For obtaining a finite result under summation over eigenfrequencies
of the Nambu--Goto string with massive ends a suitable mode--by--mode
subtraction is proposed. This renormalization procedure proves to be completely
unique. In the framework of the developed approach the one--loop interquark
potential in the model of the relativistic string with rigidity is also
calculated.Comment: 34 pages, LATE
Observational constraints on the spectral index of the cosmological curvature perturbation
We evaluate the observational constraints on the spectral index , in the
context of the CDM hypothesis which represents the simplest viable
cosmology. We first take to be practically scale-independent. Ignoring
reionization, we find at a nominal 2- level . If
we make the more realisitic assumption that reionization occurs when a fraction
to 1 of the matter has collapsed, the 2- lower bound is
unchanged while the 1- bound rises slightly. These constraints are
compared with the prediction of various inflation models. Then we investigate
the two-parameter scale-dependent spectral index, predicted by running-mass
inflation models, and find that present data allow significant scale-dependence
of , which occurs in a physically reasonable regime of parameter space.Comment: ReVTeX, 15 pages, 5 figures and 3 tables, uses epsf.sty Improved
treatment of reionization and small bug fixed in the constant n case; more
convenient parameterization and better treatment of the n dependence in the
CMB anisotropy for the running mass case; conclusions basically unchanged;
references adde
Cosmological Implications of Dynamical Supersymmetry Breaking
We provide a taxonomy of dynamical supersymmetry breaking theories, and
discuss the cosmological implications of the various types of models. Models in
which supersymmetry breaking is produced by chiral superfields which only have
interactions of gravitational strength (\eg\ string theory moduli) are
inconsistent with standard big bang nucleosynthesis unless the gravitino mass
is greater than \CO(3) \times 10^4 GeV. This problem cannot be solved by
inflation. Models in which supersymmetry is dynamically broken by
renormalizable interactions in flat space have no such cosmological problems.
Supersymmetry can be broken either in a hidden or the visible sector. However
hidden sector models suffer from several naturalness problems and have
difficulties in producing an acceptably large gluino mass.Comment: 24 pages (uses harvmac) UCSD/PTH 93-26, RU-3
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