Formal aspects of component software (FACS 2010 selected and extended papers)

This issue includes extended versions of selected best papers from the 7th International Workshop on Formal Aspects of Component Software (FACS 2010) held in Guimarães, Portugal on October 14–16, 2010. The component-based software development approach has emerged as a promising paradigm to cope with an ever increasing complexity of present-day software solutions by bringing sound production and engineering principles into software engineering. However, many conceptual and technological issues remain that challenge component-based software development theory and practice. To address these issues, FACS seeks to provide a forum for researchers and practitioners in the areas of component software and formal methods to foster a better understanding of the component-based paradigm and its applications as well as how formal methods can or should be used to make component-based software development succeed

On the seasonal onset of polar mesospheric clouds and the breakdown of the stratospheric polar vortex in the Southern Hemisphere

Southern Hemisphere (SH) polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs), also known as noctilucent clouds, have been observed to be more variable and, in general, dimmer than their Northern Hemisphere (NH) counterparts. The precise cause of these hemispheric differences is not well understood. This paper focuses on one aspect of the hemispheric differences: the timing of the PMC season onset. Observations from the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere satellite indicate that in recent years the date on which the PMC season begins varies much more in the SH than in the NH. Using the Canadian Middle Atmosphere Model, we show that the generation of sufficiently low temperatures necessary for cloud formation in the SH summer polar mesosphere is perturbed by year‐to‐year variations in the timing of the late‐spring breakdown of the SH stratospheric polar vortex. These stratospheric variations, which persist until the end of December, influence the propagation of gravity waves up to the mesosphere. This adds a stratospheric control to the temperatures in the polar mesopause region during early summer, which causes the onset of PMCs to vary from one year to another. This effect is much stronger in the SH than in the NH because the breakdown of the polar vortex occurs much later in the SH, closer in time to the PMC season

Overview and update of the SPARC Data Initiative: comparison of stratospheric composition measurements from satellite limb sounders

The Stratosphere-troposphere Processes and their Role in Climate (SPARC) Data Initiative (SPARC, 2017) performed the first comprehensive assessment of currently available stratospheric composition measurements obtained from an international suite of space-based limb sounders. The initiative's main objectives were (1) to assess the state of data availability, (2) to compile time series of vertically resolved, zonal monthly mean trace gas and aerosol fields, and (3) to perform a detailed intercomparison of these time series, summarizing useful information and highlighting differences among datasets. The datasets extend over the region from the upper troposphere to the lower mesosphere (300–0.1 hPa) and are provided on a common latitude–pressure grid. They cover 26 different atmospheric constituents including the stratospheric trace gases of primary interest, ozone (O3) and water vapor (H2O), major long-lived trace gases (SF6, N2O, HF, CCl3F, CCl2F2, NOy), trace gases with intermediate lifetimes (HCl, CH4, CO, HNO3), and shorter-lived trace gases important to stratospheric chemistry including nitrogen-containing species (NO, NO2, NOx, N2O5, HNO4), halogens (BrO, ClO, ClONO2, HOCl), and other minor species (OH, HO2, CH2O, CH3CN), and aerosol. This overview of the SPARC Data Initiative introduces the updated versions of the SPARC Data Initiative time series for the extended time period 1979–2018 and provides information on the satellite instruments included in the assessment: LIMS, SAGE I/II/III, HALOE, UARS-MLS, POAM II/III, OSIRIS, SMR, MIPAS, GOMOS, SCIAMACHY, ACE-FTS, ACE-MAESTRO, Aura-MLS, HIRDLS, SMILES, and OMPS-LP. It describes the Data Initiative's top-down climatological validation approach to compare stratospheric composition measurements based on zonal monthly mean fields, which provides upper bounds to relative inter-instrument biases and an assessment of how well the instruments are able to capture geophysical features of the stratosphere. An update to previously published evaluations of O3 and H2O monthly mean time series is provided. In addition, example trace gas evaluations of methane (CH4), carbon monoxide (CO), a set of nitrogen species (NO, NO2, and HNO3), the reactive nitrogen family (NOy), and hydroperoxyl (HO2) are presented. The results highlight the quality, strengths and weaknesses, and representativeness of the different datasets. As a summary, the current state of our knowledge of stratospheric composition and variability is provided based on the overall consistency between the datasets. As such, the SPARC Data Initiative datasets and evaluations can serve as an atlas or reference of stratospheric composition and variability during the “golden age” of atmospheric limb sounding. The updated SPARC Data Initiative zonal monthly mean time series for each instrument are publicly available and accessible via the Zenodo data archive (Hegglin et al., 2020)

Proposal for a Council Decision adopting the new provisions relating to Chapter VI "Supplies" of the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community. COM (82) 732 final, 3 December 1982

Many competing definitions of software components have been proposed over the years, but still today there is only partial agreement over such basic issues as granularity (are components bigger or smaller than objects, packages, or application?), instantiation (do components exist at run-time or only at compile-time?), and state (should we distinguish between components and ``instances" of components?). We adopt a minimalist view in which components can be distinguished by \emphcomposable interfaces. We have identified a number of key features and mechanisms for expressing composable software, and propose a calculus for modeling components, based on the asynchronous pi calculus extended with explicit namespaces, or ``forms". This calculus serves as a semantic foundation and an executable abstract machine for Piccola, an experimental composition language. The calculus also enables reasoning about compositional styles and evaluation strategies for Piccola. We present the design rationale for the Piccola calculus, and briefly outline some of the results obtained

On secure mobile ad hoc routing

International audienceMany plain routing protocols have been proposed for mobile ad hoc net- works. These protocols all assume cooperative networks and focus only on routing effectiveness and efficiency. However, mobile ad hoc networks are not a friendly environment for various reasons in nature. Routing Proto- cols without any security feature can put entire network at risk. As security becomes an increasingly important issue, secure mobile ad hoc routing is attracting more and more research attention. In this paper, we make a comprehensive investigation on the issue of network security and conduct an up-to-date survey of secure mobile ad hoc routing protocols