Virtual Reality Visualization by CAVE with VFIVE and VTK

The CAVE-type virtual reality (VR) system was introduced for scientific visualization of large scale data in the plasma simulation community about a decade ago. Since then, we have been developing a VR visualization software, VFIVE, for general CAVE systems. Recently, we have integrated an open source visualization library, the Visualization Toolkit (VTK), into VFIVE. Various visualization methods of VTK can be incorporated and used interactively in VFIVE.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, submitted to J. Plasma Physcs (special issue for 19th ICNSP

Modular Verification of Interrupt-Driven Software

Interrupts have been widely used in safety-critical computer systems to handle outside stimuli and interact with the hardware, but reasoning about interrupt-driven software remains a difficult task. Although a number of static verification techniques have been proposed for interrupt-driven software, they often rely on constructing a monolithic verification model. Furthermore, they do not precisely capture the complete execution semantics of interrupts such as nested invocations of interrupt handlers. To overcome these limitations, we propose an abstract interpretation framework for static verification of interrupt-driven software that first analyzes each interrupt handler in isolation as if it were a sequential program, and then propagates the result to other interrupt handlers. This iterative process continues until results from all interrupt handlers reach a fixed point. Since our method never constructs the global model, it avoids the up-front blowup in model construction that hampers existing, non-modular, verification techniques. We have evaluated our method on 35 interrupt-driven applications with a total of 22,541 lines of code. Our results show the method is able to quickly and more accurately analyze the behavior of interrupts.Comment: preprint of the ASE 2017 pape

Structure and Stability of Magnetic Fields in Solar Active Region12192 Based on Nonlinear Force-Free Field Modeling

We analyze a three-dimensional (3D) magnetic structure and its stability in large solar active region(AR) 12192, using the 3D coronal magnetic field constructed under a nonlinear force-free field (NLFFF) approximation. In particular, we focus on the magnetic structure that produced an X3.1-class flare which is one of the X-class flares observed in AR 12192. According to our analysis, the AR contains multiple-flux-tube system, {\it e.g.}, a large flux tube, both of whose footpoints are anchored to the large bipole field, under which other tubes exist close to a polarity inversion line (PIL). These various flux tubes of different sizes and shapes coexist there. In particular, the later are embedded along the PIL, which produces a favorable shape for the tether-cutting reconnection and is related to the X-class solar flare. We further found that most of magnetic twists are not released even after the flare, which is consistent with the fact that no observational evidence for major eruptions was found. On the other hand, the upper part of the flux tube is beyond a critical decay index, essential for the excitation of torus instability before the flare, even though no coronal mass ejections (CMEs) were observed. We discuss the stability of the complicated flux tube system and suggest the reason for the existence of the stable flux tube. In addition, we further point out a possibility for tracing the shape of flare ribbons, on the basis of a detailed structural analysis of the NLFFF before a flare.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa