The SI-Combiner: Detecting and using scenario information for smart systems

Many problems, such Aroclor Interpretation, are ill-conditioned problems in which trained programs, or methods, must operate in scenarios outside their training ranges because it is intractable to train them completely. Consequently, they fail in ways related to the scenarios. Importantly, when multiple trained methods fail divergently, their patterns of failures provide insights into the true results. The SI-Combiner solves this problem of Integrating Multiple Learned Models (IMLM) by automatically learning and using these insights to produce a solution more accurate than any single trained program. In application, the Aroclor Interpretation SI-Combiner improved on the accuracy of the most accurate individual trained program in the suite. For Smart Systems, the implication of trusting a single computation or sensor that is not able to report its own accuracy is devastating. Once one begins to compare multiple results, majority rule may not make sense, especially for computations that are not provably independent. With approximate understanding of the conditions that confound an individual computation or sensor, the presented IMLM method allows sensible interpretation of multiple, possibly disagreeing, results. This paper presents a new fuzzy IMLM method called the SI-Combiner and its application to Aroclor Interpretation. Additionally, this paper shows the improvement in accuracy that the SI-Combiner`s components show against Multicategory Classification (MCC), Dempster-Shafer (DS), and the best individual trained program in the Aroclor Interpretation suite (iMLR)

Measurement of the cosmic ray spectrum above 4×10184{\times}10^{18} eV using inclined events detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory

A measurement of the cosmic-ray spectrum for energies exceeding $4{\times}10^{18}$ eV is presented, which is based on the analysis of showers with zenith angles greater than $60^{\circ}$ detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2013. The measured spectrum confirms a flux suppression at the highest energies. Above $5.3{\times}10^{18}$ eV, the "ankle", the flux can be described by a power law $E^{-\gamma}$ with index $\gamma=2.70 \pm 0.02 \,\text{(stat)} \pm 0.1\,\text{(sys)}$ followed by a smooth suppression region. For the energy ($E_\text{s}$) at which the spectral flux has fallen to one-half of its extrapolated value in the absence of suppression, we find $E_\text{s}=(5.12\pm0.25\,\text{(stat)}^{+1.0}_{-1.2}\,\text{(sys)}){\times}10^{19}$ eV.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Energy Estimation of Cosmic Rays with the Engineering Radio Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) is part of the Pierre Auger Observatory and is used to detect the radio emission of cosmic-ray air showers. These observations are compared to the data of the surface detector stations of the Observatory, which provide well-calibrated information on the cosmic-ray energies and arrival directions. The response of the radio stations in the 30 to 80 MHz regime has been thoroughly calibrated to enable the reconstruction of the incoming electric field. For the latter, the energy deposit per area is determined from the radio pulses at each observer position and is interpolated using a two-dimensional function that takes into account signal asymmetries due to interference between the geomagnetic and charge-excess emission components. The spatial integral over the signal distribution gives a direct measurement of the energy transferred from the primary cosmic ray into radio emission in the AERA frequency range. We measure 15.8 MeV of radiation energy for a 1 EeV air shower arriving perpendicularly to the geomagnetic field. This radiation energy -- corrected for geometrical effects -- is used as a cosmic-ray energy estimator. Performing an absolute energy calibration against the surface-detector information, we observe that this radio-energy estimator scales quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy as expected for coherent emission. We find an energy resolution of the radio reconstruction of 22% for the data set and 17% for a high-quality subset containing only events with at least five radio stations with signal.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Measurement of the Radiation Energy in the Radio Signal of Extensive Air Showers as a Universal Estimator of Cosmic-Ray Energy

We measure the energy emitted by extensive air showers in the form of radio emission in the frequency range from 30 to 80 MHz. Exploiting the accurate energy scale of the Pierre Auger Observatory, we obtain a radiation energy of 15.8 \pm 0.7 (stat) \pm 6.7 (sys) MeV for cosmic rays with an energy of 1 EeV arriving perpendicularly to a geomagnetic field of 0.24 G, scaling quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy. A comparison with predictions from state-of-the-art first-principle calculations shows agreement with our measurement. The radiation energy provides direct access to the calorimetric energy in the electromagnetic cascade of extensive air showers. Comparison with our result thus allows the direct calibration of any cosmic-ray radio detector against the well-established energy scale of the Pierre Auger Observatory.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DOI. Supplemental material in the ancillary file

An unavailability analysis of firewall sandwich configurations

© 2001 IEEE. Firewalls form the first line of defense in securing internal networks from the Internet. A Firewall only provides security if all traffic into and out of an internal network passes through the firewall. However, a single firewall through which all network traffic must flow represents a single point of failure. If the firewall is down, all access is lost. A common solution to this problem is to use firewall sandwiches, comprising multiple firewall processors running in parallel. A firewall sandwich system needs load-balancing processes executing on separate processors to manage the flow of packets through the firewall processors. The number of redundant load balancing processors and their redundancy management policies have a major impact on system unavailability. We present a model to analyze the steady-state unavailability of firewall sandwiches and compare the unavailability of various load-balancing configurations. The results show that, using representative non-proprietary values for system parameters, redundancy management policies are at least as important as the number of redundant processing nodes

Using situational simulations to support decision making in co-dependent infrastructure systems

In this paper we introduced an integrative network-based approach to modelling co-dependent infrastructure systems and simulating them within the general purpose framework of situational simulations. We introduced and discussed the underlying mathematical model of the simulation, and also discussed typical information that will drive it – specifically considering the case of the City of Houghton, Michigan, in the USA. We also implemented the situational simulation using a proposed process model and the information model, thus providing a prototypical product interface. The simulation is interactive and it allows decision makers to account for complex adaptive interactions among co-dependent infrastructure systems, and to account for non-linear feedbacks and counter-intuitive behaviour. The significance of this research is twofold: 1. It provides an underlying model to represent and reason about co-dependent infrastructure systems. 2. It implements the model within the general purpose framework of situational simulations that can be used by public infrastructure emergency management agencies to test crisis management strategies, assess risk, and specifically identify and prepare for events that expose system vulnerabilities. This paper seeds an agenda for interdisciplinary future research with the ultimate goal of developing products that enhance decision making in managing co-dependent infrastructure systems

DIMPLE: DynamIc membership protocol for epidemic protocols

Epidemic protocols assume that information of a random set of nodes is provided at each protocol round. By definition, the random set needs to be chosen uniformly and randomly from the entire set to gossip with. Consequently, a node observes a different set of randomly chosen nodes at each different protocol round. Several proposals have addressed the issue of providing a different random set of nodes at each different round. In general, for large systems, this is done by creating a partial view of the entire membership at each node and exchanging part of the partial view among nodes. While many interesting properties of this approach have been found, investigation is needed to study the performance of this approach with practically high network churn. Without an action specifically designed for churn, shuffling would produce many dangling pointers in the partial view which point to an already left node. This in turn would significantly degrade the quality of epidemic protocols. The reason for the poor quality of the partial view is that the procedures of leave and join can take too long time to handle churn efficiently. To address this issue, an additional action of reinforcement and a new join procedure are proposed and evaluated in this paper. The reinforcement detects and removes dangling pointers at each shuffle more effectively, and the new join procedure accommodates a newly joining node remarkably fast. The subsequent simulations show that these ideas enhance the shuffling mechanism such that the system processes network churn much faster and the quality of the node degrees is significantly enhanced

Käytännön kosteikkosuunnittelu

Maatalouden vesiensuojelua edistetään monin tavoin. Ravinteita ja eroosioainesta sisältäviä valumavesiä pyritään puhdistamaan erilaisissa kosteikoissa. Tämä opas on kirjoitettu avuksi pienimuotoisten kosteikkojen perustamiseen. Oppaassa esitetään käytännönläheisesti kosteikon toteuttamisen eri vaiheet paikan valinnasta suunnitteluun ja rakentamiseen. Vuonna 2010 julkaistun painoksen tiedot on saatettu ajantasalle. Julkaisu on toteutettu osana Tehoa maatalouden vesiensuojeluun (TEHO) -hanketta ja päivitetty TEHO Plus -hankkeen toimesta. Oppaan toivotaan lisäävän kiinnostusta kosteikkojen suunnitteluun ja edelleen niiden rakentamiseen