Formal mechanization of device interactions with a process algebra

The principle emphasis is to develop a methodology to formally verify correct synchronization communication of devices in a composed hardware system. Previous system integration efforts have focused on vertical integration of one layer on top of another. This task examines 'horizontal' integration of peer devices. To formally reason about communication, we mechanize a process algebra in the Higher Order Logic (HOL) theorem proving system. Using this formalization we show how four types of device interactions can be represented and verified to behave as specified. The report also describes the specification of a system consisting of an AVM-1 microprocessor and a memory management unit which were verified in previous work. A proof of correct communication is presented, and the extensions to the system specification to add a direct memory device are discussed

Towards composition of verified hardware devices

Computers are being used where no affordable level of testing is adequate. Safety and life critical systems must find a replacement for exhaustive testing to guarantee their correctness. Through a mathematical proof, hardware verification research has focused on device verification and has largely ignored system composition verification. To address these deficiencies, we examine how the current hardware verification methodology can be extended to verify complete systems

(Dis)Appearing Subjects: Managing Violence Through the Discourse of Bullying

In the early 2000’s, “bullying” became the new center of LGBTQ justice organizing. As part of this development a bullied subject emerged. This bullied person on whose behalf liberation was being sought took various forms from the bullied school shooter, to the cyberbullying victim, to the bullied suicidal queer. As the subtitle of my dissertation suggests, I focus on “managing violence through the discourse of bullying.” This marks a two part process: how the discourse of bullying manages to do violence and how it manages populations biopolitically. This study tackles one of the core paradoxes that inform the formation of these bullied subjects—that is, the terms by which experiences of harassment, assault, and oppression are objected to are often routed through structures of racialized gendered and sexual violence. The grammars that govern the intelligibility of the bullied subject’s victimization, I argue rest on normative logics of differential valuation where racialized gender and sexuality work to afford some bullied subjects recognition of their victimization through rendering queer of color existence disposable, girls worse bullies than those that sexually assault them, justice conditioned on state-sanctioned racial and heteronormative violence, and the very possibility of queer futurity requiring our collective complicity in queer disposability and elimination in the present. By offering three case studies—the bullied school shooter, the cyberbullying victim, and the bullied suicidal queer—this study reveals what happens when forms of violence are offered recognition as “bullying” and toward what end

On the Evolution of CAE Research

Less than a decade ago it seemed that a new paradigm of engineering–called computer-aided engineering (CAE) – was emerging. This emergence was driven in part by the success of computer support for the tasks of engineering analysis and in part by a new understanding of how computational ideas largely rooted in artificial intelligence (AI) could perhaps improve the practice of engineering, especially in the area of design synthesis. However, while this “revolution” has failed to take root or flourish as a separate discipline, it has spawned research that is very different from traditional engineering research. To the extent that such CAE research is different in style and paradigm, it must also be evaluated according to different metrics. Some of the metrics that can be used are suggested, and some of the evaluation issues that remain as open questions are pointed out

A Group Level of Aspiration Technique as a Measure of Personality Rigidity

The problem of personality rigidity or the persistence of maladaptive behavior is becoming increasingly important in our culture. As part of a series of studies of the Preventive Psychiatry Project of the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station concerning this variable, it was decided to develop a group level of aspiration technique which would provide an operational measure of this concept. Inherent in such a technique is the opportunity for the subject to make numerous shifts of his goal level. The capacity to change goals in the light of new experience is an integral aspect of flexibility, and conversely an inability to shift goals may be an expression of rigidity. Most level of aspiration tasks are individually administered and data collection is a slow process. Those level of aspiration situations (4) which are group administered lack criterion validity. A valid group level of aspiration technique would, therefore, offer the advantages of more rapid and more extensive sampling, without loss of the predictive value of the individual task. If this group level of aspiration technique provides a valid measure of rigidity, it is predicted that those subjects considered highly rigid in terms of this measure would tend to receive higher scores on the California Ethnocentrism Scale (1) and could also be discriminated from flexible subjects on a Short Form of the Wesley Rigidity Scale (11). Another cross validation of the group level of aspiration technique as a measure of rigidity would be a high degree of relationship with a generally accepted, standard, individual level of aspiration technique, in this case the Rotter Board. In addition, if this group form meets the criteria of an adequate level of aspiration situation, a positive correlation should exist between goal setting behavior in these two distinct tasks