DOH: A Content Delivery Peer-to-Peer Network

Many SMEs and non-pro¯t organizations su®er when their Web servers become unavailable due to °ash crowd e®ects when their web site becomes popular. One of the solutions to the °ash-crowd problem is to place the web site on a scalable CDN (Content Delivery Network) that replicates the content and distributes the load in order to improve its response time. In this paper, we present our approach to building a scalable Web Hosting environment as a CDN on top of a structured peer-to-peer system of collaborative web-servers integrated to share the load and to improve the overall system performance, scalability, availability and robustness. Unlike clusterbased solutions, it can run on heterogeneous hardware, over geographically dispersed areas. To validate and evaluate our approach, we have developed a system prototype called DOH (DKS Organized Hosting) that is a CDN implemented on top of the DKS (Distributed K-nary Search) structured P2P system with DHT (Distributed Hash table) functionality [9]. The prototype is implemented in Java, using the DKS middleware, the Jetty web-server, and a modi¯ed JavaFTP server. The proposed design of CDN has been evaluated by simulation and by evaluation experiments on the prototype

Constructing and exploring wells of energy landscapes

Landscape paradigm is ubiquitous in physics and other natural sciences, but it has to be supplemented with both quantitative and qualitatively meaningful tools for analyzing the topography of a given landscape. We here consider dynamic explorations of the relief and introduce as basic topographic features ``wells of duration $T$ and altitude $y$''. We determine an intrinsic exploration mechanism governing the evolutions from an initial state in the well up to its rim in a prescribed time, whose finite-difference approximations on finite grids yield a constructive algorithm for determining the wells. Our main results are thus (i) a quantitative characterization of landscape topography rooted in a dynamic exploration of the landscape, (ii) an alternative to stochastic gradient dynamics for performing such an exploration, (iii) a constructive access to the wells and (iv) the determination of some bare dynamic features inherent to the landscape. The mathematical tools used here are not familiar in physics: They come from set-valued analysis (differential calculus of set-valued maps and differential inclusions) and viability theory (capture basins of targets under evolutionary systems) which have been developed during the last two decades; we therefore propose a minimal appendix exposing them at the end of this paper to bridge the possible gap.Comment: 28 pages, submitted to J. Math. Phys -

Dirac's Footsteps and Supersymmetry

One hundred years after its creator's birth, the Dirac equation stands as the cornerstone of XXth Century physics. But it is much more, as it carries the seeds of supersymmetry. Dirac also invented the light-cone, or "front form" dynamics, which plays a crucial role in string theory and in elucidating the finiteness of N=4 Yang-Mills theory. The light-cone structure of eleven-dimensional supergravity (N=8 supergravity in four dimensions) suggests a group-theoretical interpretation of its divergences. We speculate they could be compensated by an infinite number of triplets of massless higher spin fields, each obeying a Dirac-like equation associated with the coset $F_4/SO(9)$. The divergences are proportional to the trace over a non-compact structure containing the compact form of $F_4$. Its nature is still unknown, but it could show the way to $M$-theory.Comment: Invited Talk at Dirac's Centennial Symposium, Tallahasse, Florida, Dec 200

Light Nuclei solving Auger puzzles. The Cen-A imprint

Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) map at 60 EeV have been found recently by AUGER group spreading anisotropy signatures in the sky. The result have been interpreted as a manifestation of AGN sources ejecting protons at GZK edges mostly from Super-galactic Plane. The result is surprising due to the absence of much nearer Virgo cluster. Moreover, early GZK cut off in the spectra may be better reconcile with light nuclei (than with protons). In addition a large group (nearly a dozen) of events cluster suspiciously along Cen-A. Finally, proton UHECR composition nature is in sharp disagreement with earlier AUGER claim of a heavy nuclei dominance at 40 EeV. Therefore we interpret here the signals as mostly UHECR light nuclei (He, Be, B, C, O), very possibly mostly the lightest (He,Be) ones, ejected from nearest AGN Cen-A, UHECR smeared by galactic magnetic fields, whose random vertical bending is overlapping with super-galactic arm. The eventual AUGER misunderstanding took place because of such a rare coincidence between the Super Galactic Plane (arm) and the smeared (randomized) signals from Cen-A, bent orthogonally to the Galactic fields. Our derivation verify the consistence of the random smearing angles for He, Be and B, C, O, in reasonable agreement with the AUGER main group events around Cen-A. Only few other rare events are spread elsewhere. The most collimated from Cen-A are the lightest. The most spread the heavier. Consequently Cen-A is the best candidate UHE neutrino tau observable by HEAT and AMIGA as enhanced AUGER array at tens-hundred PeV energy. This model maybe soon tested by new events clustering around the Cen-A and by composition imprint study.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures

Asymptotic step profiles from a nonlinear growth equation for vicinal surfaces

We study a recently proposed nonlinear evolution equation describing the collective step meander on a vicinal surface subject to the Bales-Zangwill growth instability [O. Pierre-Louis et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. (80), 4221 (1998)]. A careful numerical analysis shows that the dynamically selected step profile consists of sloped segments, given by an inverse error function and steepening as sqrt(t), which are matched to pieces of a stationary (time-independent) solution describing the maxima and minima. The effect of smoothening by step edge diffusion is included heuristically, and a one-parameter family of evolution equations is introduced which contains relaxation by step edge diffusion and by attachment-detachment as special cases. The question of the persistence of an initially imposed meander wavelength is investigated in relation to recent experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 5 included figures. Typo in Eq.(5) corrected, section headlines added and Ref.[12] update

Direct measurements of anisotropic energy transfers in a rotating turbulence experiment

We investigate experimentally the influence of a background rotation on the energy transfers in decaying grid turbulence. The anisotropic energy flux density, ${\bf F} ({\bf r}) =$, where $\delta {\bf u}$ is the vector velocity increment over separation ${\bf r}$, is determined for the first time using Particle Image Velocimetry. We show that rotation induces an anisotropy of the energy flux $\nabla \cdot {\bf F}$, which leads to an anisotropy growth of the energy distribution $E({\bf r}) = < (\delta {\bf u})^2 >$, in agreement with the K\'arm\'an-Howarth-Monin equation. Surprisingly, our results prove that this anisotropy growth is essentially driven by a nearly radial, but orientation-dependent, energy flux density ${\bf F} ({\bf r})$.Comment: to appear in Physical Review Letters (July 8, 2011 issue

Dielectric response of a polar fluid trapped in a spherical nanocavity

We present extensive Molecular Dynamics simulation results for the structure, static and dynamical response of a droplet of 1000 soft spheres carrying extended dipoles and confined to spherical cavities of radii $R=2.5$, 3, and 4 nm embedded in a dielectric continuum of permittivity $\epsilon' \geq 1$. The polarisation of the external medium by the charge distribution inside the cavity is accounted for by appropriate image charges. We focus on the influence of the external permittivity $\epsilon'$ on the static and dynamic properties of the confined fluid. The density profile and local orientational order parameter of the dipoles turn out to be remarkably insensitive to $\epsilon'$. Permittivity profiles $\epsilon(r)$ inside the spherical cavity are calculated from a generalised Kirkwood formula. These profiles oscillate in phase with the density profiles and go to a ``bulk'' value $\epsilon_b$ away from the confining surface; $\epsilon_b$ is only weakly dependent on $\epsilon'$, except for $\epsilon' = 1$ (vacuum), and is strongly reduced compared to the permittivity of a uniform (bulk) fluid under comparable thermodynamic conditions. The dynamic relaxation of the total dipole moment of the sample is found to be strongly dependent on $\epsilon'$, and to exhibit oscillatory behaviour when $\epsilon'=1$; the relaxation is an order of magnitude faster than in the bulk. The complex frequency-dependent permittivity $\epsilon(\omega)$ is sensitive to $\epsilon'$ at low frequencies, and the zero frequency limit $\epsilon(\omega=0)$ is systematically lower than the ``bulk'' value $\epsilon_b$ of the static primitivity.Comment: 12 pages including 17 figure