1,752 research outputs found
Availability analysis of post-combustion carbon capture systems: minimum work input
Published versio
Can majority support save an endangered language? A case study of language attitudes in Guernsey
Many studies of minority language revitalisation focus on the attitudes and perceptions of minorities, but not on those of majority group members. This paper discusses the implications of these issues, and presents research into majority andf minority attitudes towards the endangered indigenous vernacular of Guernsey, Channel Islands. The research used a multi-method approach (questionnaire and interview) to obtain attitudinal data from a representative sample of the population that included politicians and civil servants (209 participants). The findings suggested a shift in language ideology away from the post-second world war âculture of modernisationâ and monolingual ideal, towards recognition of the value of a bi/trilingual linguistic heritage. Public opinion in Guernsey now seems to support the maintenance of the indigenous language variety, which has led to a degree of official support. The paper then discusses to what extent this âattitude shiftâ is reflected in linguistic behaviour and in concrete language planning measures
Abstract Argumentation / Persuasion / Dynamics
The act of persuasion, a key component in rhetoric argumentation, may be
viewed as a dynamics modifier. We extend Dung's frameworks with acts of
persuasion among agents, and consider interactions among attack, persuasion and
defence that have been largely unheeded so far. We characterise basic notions
of admissibilities in this framework, and show a way of enriching them through,
effectively, CTL (computation tree logic) encoding, which also permits
importation of the theoretical results known to the logic into our
argumentation frameworks. Our aim is to complement the growing interest in
coordination of static and dynamic argumentation.Comment: Arisaka R., Satoh K. (2018) Abstract Argumentation / Persuasion /
Dynamics. In: Miller T., Oren N., Sakurai Y., Noda I., Savarimuthu B., Cao
Son T. (eds) PRIMA 2018: Principles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems.
PRIMA 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 11224. Springer, Cha
Statistical mechanics of voting
Decision procedures aggregating the preferences of multiple agents can
produce cycles and hence outcomes which have been described heuristically as
`chaotic'. We make this description precise by constructing an explicit
dynamical system from the agents' preferences and a voting rule. The dynamics
form a one dimensional statistical mechanics model; this suggests the use of
the topological entropy to quantify the complexity of the system. We formulate
natural political/social questions about the expected complexity of a voting
rule and degree of cohesion/diversity among agents in terms of random matrix
models---ensembles of statistical mechanics models---and compute quantitative
answers in some representative cases.Comment: 9 pages, plain TeX, 2 PostScript figures included with epsf.tex
(ignore the under/overfull \vbox error messages
Review on the EFDA work programme on nano-structured ODS RAF steels
This proceeding is: The 14th International Conference on Fusion Reactor Materials (ICFRM-14) was held at the Sapporo Convention Center in Sapporo, Japan from 7 to 12 September 2009.The 2008â2009 work programme of the European research project on nano-structured oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) reduced activation ferritic (RAF) steels is being organized along the four following programmatic lines: (1) improve the present generation of nano-structured ODS RAF steels; (2) start the industrial fabrication of the present generation of nano-structured ODS RAF steels; (3) develop an optimised generation of nano-structured and nano-grained ODS RAF steels; (4) investigate the stability of present and optimised generation of nano-structured ODS RAF steels under creep and irradiation. This paper presents the main objectives of current R&D activities being performed within the European research project on nano-structured ODS RAF steels, the main obtained results and the main future activities in the case of the four programmatic lines mentioned just above.This work, supported by the European Communities, was carried out within the framework of the European Fusion Development Agreement.Publicad
Propositional update operators based on formula/literal dependence
International audienceWe present and study a general family of belief update operators in a propositional setting. Its operators are based on formula/literal dependence, which is more fine-grained than the notion of formula/variable dependence that was proposed in the literature: formula/variable dependence is a particular case of formula/literal dependence. Our update operators are defined according to the "forget-then-conjoin" scheme: updating a belief base by an input formula consists in first forgetting in the base every literal on which the input formula has a negative influence, and then conjoining the resulting base with the input formula. The operators of our family differ by the underlying notion of formula/literal dependence, which may be defined syntactically or semantically, and which may or may not exploit further information like known persistent literals and pre-set dependencies. We argue that this allows to handle the frame problem and the ramification problem in a more appropriate way. We evaluate the update operators of our family w.r.t. two important dimensions: the logical dimension, by checking the status of the Katsuno-Mendelzon postulates for update, and the computational dimension, by identifying the complexity of a number of decision problems (including model checking, consistency and inference), both in the general case and in some restricted cases, as well as by studying compactability issues. It follows that several operators of our family are interesting alternatives to previous belief update operators
Nucleation of Al3Zr and Al3Sc in aluminum alloys: from kinetic Monte Carlo simulations to classical theory
Zr and Sc precipitate in aluminum alloys to form the compounds Al3Zr and
Al3Sc which for low supersaturations of the solid solution have the L12
structure. The aim of the present study is to model at an atomic scale this
kinetics of precipitation and to build a mesoscopic model based on classical
nucleation theory so as to extend the field of supersaturations and annealing
times that can be simulated. We use some ab-initio calculations and
experimental data to fit an Ising model describing thermodynamics of the Al-Zr
and Al-Sc systems. Kinetic behavior is described by means of an atom-vacancy
exchange mechanism. This allows us to simulate with a kinetic Monte Carlo
algorithm kinetics of precipitation of Al3Zr and Al3Sc. These kinetics are then
used to test the classical nucleation theory. In this purpose, we deduce from
our atomic model an isotropic interface free energy which is consistent with
the one deduced from experimental kinetics and a nucleation free energy. We
test di erent mean-field approximations (Bragg-Williams approximation as well
as Cluster Variation Method) for these parameters. The classical nucleation
theory is coherent with the kinetic Monte Carlo simulations only when CVM is
used: it manages to reproduce the cluster size distribution in the metastable
solid solution and its evolution as well as the steady-state nucleation rate.
We also find that the capillary approximation used in the classical nucleation
theory works surprisingly well when compared to a direct calculation of the
free energy of formation for small L12 clusters.Comment: submitted to Physical Review B (2004
Sheared Solid Materials
We present a time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau model of nonlinear elasticity in
solid materials. We assume that the elastic energy density is a periodic
function of the shear and tetragonal strains owing to the underlying lattice
structure. With this new ingredient, solving the equations yields formation of
dislocation dipoles or slips. In plastic flow high-density dislocations emerge
at large strains to accumulate and grow into shear bands where the strains are
localized. In addition to the elastic displacement, we also introduce the local
free volume {\it m}. For very small the defect structures are metastable
and long-lived where the dislocations are pinned by the Peierls potential
barrier. However, if the shear modulus decreases with increasing {\it m},
accumulation of {\it m} around dislocation cores eventually breaks the Peierls
potential leading to slow relaxations in the stress and the free energy
(aging). As another application of our scheme, we also study dislocation
formation in two-phase alloys (coherency loss) under shear strains, where
dislocations glide preferentially in the softer regions and are trapped at the
interfaces.Comment: 16pages, 11figure
Fate of gravitational collapse in semiclassical gravity
While the outcome of gravitational collapse in classical general relativity
is unquestionably a black hole, up to now no full and complete semiclassical
description of black hole formation has been thoroughly investigated. Here we
revisit the standard scenario for this process. By analyzing how semiclassical
collapse proceeds we show that the very formation of a trapping horizon can be
seriously questioned for a large set of, possibly realistic, scenarios. We
emphasise that in principle the theoretical framework of semiclassical gravity
certainly allows the formation of trapping horizons. What we are questioning
here is the more subtle point of whether or not the standard black hole picture
is appropriate for describing the end point of realistic collapse. Indeed if
semiclassical physics were in some cases to prevent formation of the trapping
horizon, then this suggests the possibility of new collapsed objects which can
be much less problematic, making it unnecessary to confront the information
paradox or the run-away end point problem.Comment: revtex4, 14 pages, 2 figure
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