1,973 research outputs found
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Software fault-freeness and reliability predictions
Many software development practices aim at ensuring that software is correct, or fault-free. In safety critical applications, requirements are in terms of probabilities of certain behaviours, e.g. as associated to the Safety Integrity Levels of IEC 61508. The two forms of reasoning - about evidence of correctness and about probabilities of certain failures -are rarely brought together explicitly. The desirability of using claims of correctness has been argued by many authors, but not been taken up in practice. We address how to combine evidence concerning probability of failure together with evidence pertaining to likelihood of fault-freeness, in a Bayesian framework. We present novel results to make this approach practical, by guaranteeing reliability predictions that are conservative (err on the side of pessimism), despite the difficulty of stating prior probability distributions for reliability parameters. This approach seems suitable for practical application to assessment of certain classes of safety critical systems
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Toward a Formalism for Conservative Claims about the Dependability of Software-Based Systems
In recent work, we have argued for a formal treatment of confidence about the claims made in dependability cases for software-based systems. The key idea underlying this work is "the inevitability of uncertainty": It is rarely possible to assert that a claim about safety or reliability is true with certainty. Much of this uncertainty is epistemic in nature, so it seems inevitable that expert judgment will continue to play an important role in dependability cases. Here, we consider a simple case where an expert makes a claim about the probability of failure on demand (pfd) of a subsystem of a wider system and is able to express his confidence about that claim probabilistically. An important, but difficult, problem then is how such subsystem (claim, confidence) pairs can be propagated through a dependability case for a wider system, of which the subsystems are components. An informal way forward is to justify, at high confidence, a strong claim, and then, conservatively, only claim something much weaker: "I'm 99 percent confident that the pfd is less than 10-5, so it's reasonable to be 100 percent confident that it is less than 10-3." These conservative pfds of subsystems can then be propagated simply through the dependability case of the wider system. In this paper, we provide formal support for such reasoning
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The impact of "difficulty" variation on the probability of coincident failure of diverse systems
Electron-phonon coupling in semimetals in a high magnetic field
We consider the effect of electron-phonon coupling in semimetals in high
magnetic fields, with regard to elastic modes that can lead to a redistribution
of carriers between pockets. We show that in a clean three dimensional system,
at each Landau level crossing, this leads to a discontinuity in the
magnetostriction, and a divergent contribution to the elastic modulus. We
estimate the magnitude of this effect in the group V semimetal Bismuth.Comment: 2 figure
Variational discrete variable representation for excitons on a lattice
We construct numerical basis function sets on a lattice, whose spatial
extension is scalable from single lattice sites to the continuum limit. They
allow us to compute small and large bound states with comparable, moderate
effort. Adopting concepts of discrete variable representations, a diagonal form
of the potential term is achieved through a unitary transformation to Gaussian
quadrature points. Thereby the computational effort in three dimensions scales
as the fourth instead of the sixth power of the number of basis functions along
each axis, such that it is reduced by two orders of magnitude in realistic
examples. As an improvement over standard discrete variable representations,
our construction preserves the variational principle. It allows for the
calculation of binding energies, wave functions, and excitation spectra. We use
this technique to study central-cell corrections for excitons beyond the
continuum approximation. A discussion of the mass and spectrum of the yellow
exciton series in the cuprous oxide, which does not follow the hydrogenic
Rydberg series of Mott-Wannier excitons, is given on the basis of a simple
lattice model.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures. Final version as publishe
Ferrodistortive instability at the (001) surface of half-metallic manganites
We present the structure of the fully relaxed (001) surface of the
half-metallic manganite La0.7Sr0.3MnO3, calculated using density functional
theory within the generalized gradient approximation (GGA). Two relevant
ferroelastic order parameters are identified and characterized: The tilting of
the oxygen octahedra, which is present in the bulk phase, oscillates and
decreases towards the surface, and an additional ferrodistortive Mn
off-centering, triggered by the surface, decays monotonically into the bulk.
The narrow d-like energy band that is characteristic of unrelaxed manganite
surfaces is shifted down in energy by these structural distortions, retaining
its uppermost layer localization. The magnitude of the zero-temperature
magnetization is unchanged from its bulk value, but the effective spin-spin
interactions are reduced at the surface.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Integrity bases for local invariants of composite quantum systems
Unitary group branchings appropriate to the calculation of local invariants
of density matrices of composite quantum systems are formulated using the
method of -function plethysms. From this, the generating function for the
number of invariants at each degree in the density matrix can be computed. For
the case of two two-level systems the generating function is . Factorisation of such series leads
in principle to the identification of an integrity basis of algebraically
independent invariants. This note replaces Appendix B of our paper\cite{us} J
Phys {\bf A33} (2000) 1895-1914 (\texttt{quant-ph/0001076}) which is incorrect.Comment: Latex, 4 pages, correcting Appendix B of quant-ph/0001076 Error in
corrected and conclusions modified accordingl
Correlations in a two-dimensional Bose gas with long range interactions
We study the correlations of two-dimensional dipolar excitons in coupled
quantum wells with a dipole -- dipole repulsive interaction. We show that at
low concentrations, the Bose degeneracy of the excitons is accompanied by
strong multi-particle correlations and the system behaves as a Bose liquid. At
high concentration the particles interaction suppresses quantum coherence and
the system behaves similar to a classical liquid down to a temperature lower
than typical for a Bose gas. We evaluate the interaction energy per particle
and the resulting blue shift of the exciton luminescence that is a direct tool
to measure the correlations. This theory can apply to other systems of bosons
with extended interaction.Comment: 11 pages including 2 figure
Density and spin response functions in ultracold fermionic atom gases
We propose a new method of detecting the onset of superfluidity in a
two-component ultracold fermionic gas of atoms governed by an attractive
short-range interaction. By studying the two-body correlation functions we find
that a measurement of the momentum distribution of the density and spin
response functions allows one to access separately the normal and anomalous
densities. The change in sign at low momentum transfer of the density response
function signals the transition between a BEC and a BCS regimes, characterized
by small and large pairs, respectively. This change in sign of the density
response function represents an unambiguous signature of the BEC to BCS
crossover. Also, we predict spin rotational symmetry-breaking in this system
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