The case for cloud service trustmarks and assurance-as-a-service

Cloud computing represents a significant economic opportunity for Europe. However, this growth is threatened by adoption barriers largely related to trust. This position paper examines trust and confidence issues in cloud computing and advances a case for addressing them through the implementation of a novel trustmark scheme for cloud service providers. The proposed trustmark would be both active and dynamic featuring multi-modal information about the performance of the underlying cloud service. The trustmarks would be informed by live performance data from the cloud service provider, or ideally an independent third-party accountability and assurance service that would communicate up-to-date information relating to service performance and dependability. By combining assurance measures with a remediation scheme, cloud service providers could both signal dependability to customers and the wider marketplace and provide customers, auditors and regulators with a mechanism for determining accountability in the event of failure or non-compliance. As a result, the trustmarks would convey to consumers of cloud services and other stakeholders that strong assurance and accountability measures are in place for the service in question and thereby address trust and confidence issues in cloud computing

Philosophical foundations of neuroscience in organizational research : functional and nonfunctional approaches

Neuroscience offers a unique opportunity to elucidate the role of mental phenomena, including consciousness. However the place of such phenomena in explanations of human behavior is controversial. For example, consciousness has been construed in varied and conflicting forms, making it difficult to represent it in meaningful ways without committing researchers to one species of consciousness or another, with vastly different implications for hypothesis development, methods of study, and interpretation of findings. We explore the conceptual foundations of different explications of consciousness and consider alternative ways for studying its role in research. In the end, although no approach is flawless or dominates all others in every way, we are convinced that any viable approach must take into account, if not privilege, the self in the sense of representing the subjective, first-person process of self as observer and knower of one’s own actions and history, and the feelings and meanings attached to these. The most promising frameworks in this regard are likely to be some variant of nonreductive monism, or perhaps a kind of naturalistic dualism that remains yet to be developed coherently

Limits to ion energy control in high density glow discharges: Measurement of absolute metastable ion concentrations

Unprecedented demands for uniformity, throughput, anisotropy, and damage control in submicron pattern transfer are spurring development of new, low pressure, high charge density plasma reactors. Wafer biasing, independent of plasma production in these new systems is intended to provide improved ion flux and energy control so that selectivity can be optimized and damage can be minimized. However, as we show here, an inherent property of such discharges is the generation of significant densities of excited, metastable ionic states that can bombard workpiece surfaces with higher translational and internal energy. Absolute metastable ion densities are measured using the technique of self-absorption, while the corresponding velocity distributions and density scaling with pressure and electron density are measured using laser-induced fluorescence. For a low pressure, helicon-wave excited plasma, the metastable ion flux is at least 24% of the total ion flux to device surfaces. Because the metastable ion density scales roughly as the reciprocal of the pressure and as the square of the electron density, the metastable flux is largest in low pressure, high charge density plasmas. This metastable ion energy flux effectively limits ion energy and flux control in these plasma reactors, but the consequences for etching and deposition of thin films depend on the material system and remain an open question

Fermions in 3D Optical Lattices: Cooling Protocol to Obtain Antiferromagnetism

A major challenge in realizing antiferromagnetic (AF) and superfluid phases in optical lattices is the ability to cool fermions. We determine the equation of state for the 3D repulsive Fermi-Hubbard model as a function of the chemical potential, temperature and repulsion using unbiased determinantal quantum Monte Carlo methods, and we then use the local density approximation to model a harmonic trap. We show that increasing repulsion leads to cooling, but only in a trap, due to the redistribution of entropy from the center to the metallic wings. Thus, even when the average entropy per particle is larger than that required for antiferromagnetism in the homogeneous system, the trap enables the formation of an AF Mott phase.Comment: 4 pages; 5 figures; also see supplementary material in 2 pages with 1 figur

The large‐scale freshwater cycle of the Arctic

This paper synthesizes our understanding of the Arctic\u27s large‐scale freshwater cycle. It combines terrestrial and oceanic observations with insights gained from the ERA‐40 reanalysis and land surface and ice‐ocean models. Annual mean freshwater input to the Arctic Ocean is dominated by river discharge (38%), inflow through Bering Strait (30%), and net precipitation (24%). Total freshwater export from the Arctic Ocean to the North Atlantic is dominated by transports through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (35%) and via Fram Strait as liquid (26%) and sea ice (25%). All terms are computed relative to a reference salinity of 34.8. Compared to earlier estimates, our budget features larger import of freshwater through Bering Strait and larger liquid phase export through Fram Strait. While there is no reason to expect a steady state, error analysis indicates that the difference between annual mean oceanic inflows and outflows (∼8% of the total inflow) is indistinguishable from zero. Freshwater in the Arctic Ocean has a mean residence time of about a decade. This is understood in that annual freshwater input, while large (∼8500 km3), is an order of magnitude smaller than oceanic freshwater storage of ∼84,000 km3. Freshwater in the atmosphere, as water vapor, has a residence time of about a week. Seasonality in Arctic Ocean freshwater storage is nevertheless highly uncertain, reflecting both sparse hydrographic data and insufficient information on sea ice volume. Uncertainties mask seasonal storage changes forced by freshwater fluxes. Of flux terms with sufficient data for analysis, Fram Strait ice outflow shows the largest interannual variability

Enhanced heat capacity and a new temperature instability in superfluid He-4 in the presence of a constant heat flux near T-lambda

We present the first experimental evidence that the heat capacity of superfluid 4He, at temperatures very close to the lambda point Tλ, is enhanced by a constant heat flux Q. The heat capacity at constant Q, CQ, is predicted to diverge at a temperature Tc(Q)<Tλ at which superflow becomes unstable. In agreement with previous measurements, we find that dissipation enters our cell at a temperature, TDAS(Q), below the theoretical value, Tc(Q). We argue that TDAS(Q) can be accounted for by a temperature instability at the cell wall, and is therefore distinct from Tc(Q). The excess heat capacity we measure has the predicted scaling behavior as a function of T and Q, but it is much larger than predicted by current theory

Inoculative freezing and the problem of winter survival for freshwater macroinvertebrates

Due to the thermal buffering of their environment, aquatic invertebrates are less likely than their terrestrial counterparts to face temperatures substantially below 0°C. Aquatic invertebrates may not be able to avoid internal freezing by supercooling (remaining unfrozen at temperatures below the freezing point of their body fluids), however, because when their body temperatures reach the freezing point of body fluids, these organisms will likely be in contact with external ice, which may induce formation of internal ice (i.e., inoculative freezing). In this study, a variety of winter-collected, aquatic invertebrates (a clam, Sphaerium sp.; an isopod, Lirceus fontinalis; a mayfly, Stenomena femoratum; a belostomatid, Belostoma flumineum; 2 dytiscids, Ilybius oblitus and Agabus disintegratus) and, for comparison, a terrestrial beetle (Hippodamia convergens) were studied with respect to their low temperature tolerance. No species appeared to lower its freezing point appreciably by accumulating colligatively active solutes in body fluids, and all aquatic species supercooled moderately (-5 to -7°C), but significantly less than the terrestrial beetle (-16°C), before freezing when chilled in a dry environment. However, when chilled in contact with external ice, all animals froze at their melting points or just below (as low as ∼-2°C for the beetles), showing that they are susceptible to inoculative freezing. All aquatic species readily survived exposures to sub-zero temperatures when supercooled, but succumbed to the same conditions when inoculated by external ice. Survival of low temperatures by temperate zone aquatic invertebrates appears to depend upon thermal buffering provided by the aquatic environment, slow progress of ice formation in bodies of water at high sub-zero temperatures, avoidance of contact with external ice, and tolerance of high sub-zero temperatures when freezing does not occur in the animals themselves

Statistical Analysis of the Bio-assay of Continuous Carcinogens

In an experiment consisting of the continuous constant application of various carcinogenic regimens to a pure strain of experimental animals for a long period, the cancer incidence rates so caused may be studied and compared by the fit of an appropriate class of statistical distributions. In this paper we show that a Weibull distribution in which the age-specific cancer incidence rate rises as a power of time since first risk is more appropriate than a lognormal distribution. If the Weibull family of distributions is used, more information can be extracted from the data, and differences of toxicity between various regimens will not bias the comparison of their carcinogenic forces