7,548 research outputs found
Cyber-Virtual Systems: Simulation, Validation & Visualization
We describe our ongoing work and view on simulation, validation and
visualization of cyber-physical systems in industrial automation during
development, operation and maintenance. System models may represent an existing
physical part - for example an existing robot installation - and a software
simulated part - for example a possible future extension. We call such systems
cyber-virtual systems.
In this paper, we present the existing VITELab infrastructure for
visualization tasks in industrial automation. The new methodology for
simulation and validation motivated in this paper integrates this
infrastructure. We are targeting scenarios, where industrial sites which may be
in remote locations are modeled and visualized from different sites anywhere in
the world.
Complementing the visualization work, here, we are also concentrating on
software modeling challenges related to cyber-virtual systems and simulation,
testing, validation and verification techniques for them. Software models of
industrial sites require behavioural models of the components of the industrial
sites such as models for tools, robots, workpieces and other machinery as well
as communication and sensor facilities. Furthermore, collaboration between
sites is an important goal of our work.Comment: Preprint, 9th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel
Approaches to Software Engineering (ENASE 2014
South-South cooperation in health professional education : a literature review
In the literature on the evolution of funding approaches there is criticism of traditional funding strategies and the promotion of inclusive models, such as South-South Cooperation (SSC) and triangular models. The latter are felt to have a number of advantages. This article has four broad objectives: (i) to present a literature review on the evolution of Southern approaches to development co-operation; (ii) to indicate examples of current co-operative programmes in health and health professional education in Africa; (iii) to assess the advantages and disadvantages of these models; and (iv) to mention some emerging issues in monitoring and evaluation. The Boolean logic approach was used to search for applicable literature within three topic layers. Searches were conducted using PubMed, PLoS and other accessible databases. An initial draft of the article was presented to a group of academics and researchers at the Flemish Inter-University Council (VLIR-UOS) Primafamed annual workshop held in August 2010 in Swaziland. Comments and suggestions from the group were included in later versions of the article. It is important to note that the existence of various funding models implemented by a variety of actors makes it difficult to measure their effects. In health and health professional education, however, SSC and triangular models of aid provide conditions for more effective programming through their focus on participation and long-term involvement. With an eye towards evaluating programmes, a number of salient issues are emerging. The importance of context is highlighted
Testing Naturalness
Solutions to the electroweak hierarchy problem typically introduce a new
symmetry to stabilize the quadratic ultraviolet sensitivity in the self-energy
of the Higgs boson. The new symmetry is either broken softly or collectively,
as for example in supersymmetric and little Higgs theories. At low energies
such theories contain naturalness partners of the Standard Model fields which
are responsible for canceling the quadratic divergence in the squared Higgs
mass. Post the discovery of any partner-like particles, we propose to test the
aforementioned cancellation by measuring relevant Higgs couplings. Using the
fermionic top partners in little Higgs theories as an illustration, we
construct a simplified model for naturalness and initiate a study on testing
naturalness. After electroweak symmetry breaking, naturalness in the top sector
requires at leading order, where and
are the Higgs couplings to a pair of top quarks and top partners, respectively.
Using a multivariate method of Boosted Decision Tree to tag boosted particles
in the Standard Model, we show that, with a luminosity of 30 at a 100
TeV -collider, naturalness could be tested with a precision of 10 % for a
top partner mass up to 2.5 TeV.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures, 2 table
Rainfall or Price Variability: What Determines Rangeland Management Decisions? A Simulation-Optimization Approach to South African Savannas
Savannas cover the greater part of Africa and Australia and almost half of South America and contribute to the livelihoods of more than 350 million people. With the intensification of land use during the second half of the 20th century, savannas have become increasingly degraded through bush encroachment as a consequence of increased grazing pressure. Research on rangeland dynamics, however, provides contradicting answers with regard to the causes and possible remedies of bush encroachment. In this paper we present results from an application of a simulation-optimization model to the case of extensive rangeland management in South Africa. Our model differs from previous approaches in that it explicitly accounts for the influence of stochastic prices and rainfall on economically optimal management decisions. By showing the implications of neglecting price variation and stochasticity in rangeland models we provide new insights with regard to the determinants of bush encroachment and rangeland managers' economic utility. We demonstrate that, in the case of South Africa, optimal rangeland management is likely to lead to bush encroachment that eventually makes livestock holding unprofitable. Yet, we identify the costs of fire management to be a limiting factor for managers to counteract bush encroachment and explore the impact of policy measures to reduce fire control costs on the ecological and economic sustainability of livestock holding.Equilibrium, bio-economic modeling, grassland management, sustainable strategies, stochastic conditions, Livestock Production/Industries, Q57,
Epistemology Shock: English Professors Confront Science
This article raises questions and concerns regarding students from the sciences working with faculty in the humanities in interdisciplinary settings. It explores the experience of two English professors facing the privileging of facts and a science-based understanding of the world in their own classrooms. It poses both questions and pedagogical possibilities for addressing conflicts around epistemologies, scholarship, and teaching and learning
Bayesian shape modelling of cross-sectional geological data.
Shape information is of great importance in many applications. For example, the oil-bearing capacity of sand bodies, the subterranean remnants of ancient rivers, is related to their cross-sectional shapes. The analysis of these shapes is therefore of some interest, but current classifications are simplistic and ad hoc. In this paper, we describe the first steps towards a coherent statistical analysis of these shapes by deriving the integrated likelihood for data shapes given class parameters. The result is of interest beyond this particular application
Analysis of Software Binaries for Reengineering-Driven Product Line Architecture\^aAn Industrial Case Study
This paper describes a method for the recovering of software architectures
from a set of similar (but unrelated) software products in binary form. One
intention is to drive refactoring into software product lines and combine
architecture recovery with run time binary analysis and existing clustering
methods. Using our runtime binary analysis, we create graphs that capture the
dependencies between different software parts. These are clustered into smaller
component graphs, that group software parts with high interactions into larger
entities. The component graphs serve as a basis for further software product
line work. In this paper, we concentrate on the analysis part of the method and
the graph clustering. We apply the graph clustering method to a real
application in the context of automation / robot configuration software tools.Comment: In Proceedings FMSPLE 2015, arXiv:1504.0301
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