Model Checking CTL is Almost Always Inherently Sequential

The model checking problem for CTL is known to be P-complete (Clarke, Emerson, and Sistla (1986), see Schnoebelen (2002)). We consider fragments of CTL obtained by restricting the use of temporal modalities or the use of negations---restrictions already studied for LTL by Sistla and Clarke (1985) and Markey (2004). For all these fragments, except for the trivial case without any temporal operator, we systematically prove model checking to be either inherently sequential (P-complete) or very efficiently parallelizable (LOGCFL-complete). For most fragments, however, model checking for CTL is already P-complete. Hence our results indicate that, in cases where the combined complexity is of relevance, approaching CTL model checking by parallelism cannot be expected to result in any significant speedup. We also completely determine the complexity of the model checking problem for all fragments of the extensions ECTL, CTL+, and ECTL+

The Equal Rights Amendment: A Constitutional Basis for Equal Rights for Women

In the present legal structure, some laws exclude women from legalrights, opportunities, or responsibilities. Some are framed as legislationconferring special benefits, or protection, on women. Others create orperpetuate a separate legal status without indicating on their facewhether the position of women ranks below, or above, the positionof men. Many of the efforts to create a separate legal status for womenstem from a good faith attempt to advance the interests of women.Nevertheless, the preponderant effect has been to buttress the socialand economic subordination of women

The Quantum Mechanics of Hyperion

This paper is motivated by the suggestion [W. Zurek, Physica Scripta, T76, 186 (1998)] that the chaotic tumbling of the satellite Hyperion would become non-classical within 20 years, but for the effects of environmental decoherence. The dynamics of quantum and classical probability distributions are compared for a satellite rotating perpendicular to its orbital plane, driven by the gravitational gradient. The model is studied with and without environmental decoherence. Without decoherence, the maximum quantum-classical (QC) differences in its average angular momentum scale as hbar^{2/3} for chaotic states, and as hbar^2 for non-chaotic states, leading to negligible QC differences for a macroscopic object like Hyperion. The quantum probability distributions do not approach their classical limit smoothly, having an extremely fine oscillatory structure superimposed on the smooth classical background. For a macroscopic object, this oscillatory structure is too fine to be resolved by any realistic measurement. Either a small amount of smoothing (due to the finite resolution of the apparatus) or a very small amount of environmental decoherence is sufficient ensure the classical limit. Under decoherence, the QC differences in the probability distributions scale as (hbar^2/D)^{1/6}, where D is the momentum diffusion parameter. We conclude that decoherence is not essential to explain the classical behavior of macroscopic bodies.Comment: 17 pages, 24 figure

Метод расчета теплообмена излучением в топке осесимметричной конфигурации на основе уравнений для компонент суммарного вектора потока лучистой энергии. Инженерная методика

На основе системы уравнений первой части статьи, получены разностные уравнения квазиодномерного метода расчета теплообмена излучением в топке котла осесимметричной конфигурации. Записаны уравнения и разностные формулы метода инженерного расчета теплообмена излучением при наличии экранной сетки около поверхности горелки. Методика пригодна для использования в инженерных расчетах при определении оптимальной конфигурации топки и определении оптимального расстояния экранной сетки до поверхности горелки

Deciphering the Grand Village of the Illinois: A Preliminary Assessment of the Grand Village Research Project

On April 24, 1987, Thomas Emerson at the State Historic Preservation Office received a telephone call from a Chicago lawyer who wanted an answer to a simple question: Are there any laws that protect old Indian villages and graves that are on the National Register? Unfortunately, the answer was a simple “no.” At the time, Emerson did not suspect that this question would initiate a more than four-year struggle to save one of the most important historic sites in the country. The site, known variously as the Zimmerman site, the Grand Village of the Kaskaskia, Old Kaskaskia Village, the Grand Village of the Illinois, or simply llLS13, was purchased by developers who planned to build vacation homes on it. Eventually, after a private and public campaign that reached an international level, Governor James Thompson authorized the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency (IHPA) to seek condemnation of the property to bring it into public ownership. In April 1991, a final settlement was reached and the site was purchased by the state. It is currently under the administration of the IHPA and has been renamed the Grand Village of the Illinois State Historic Site. The Grand Village is the most important surviving village and burial site of the seventeenth-century Illinois Confederacy. In addition, it is the location of the initial French-Illinois contact and of the first Catholic mission in the Illinois Country. The site also contains materials that represent an unbroken sequence of late prehistoric, protohistoric, and Historic Indian cultural development from the ninth to the last quarter of the eighteenth century

Linear growth in preschool children treated with mass azithromycin distributions for trachoma: A cluster-randomized trial.

BackgroundMass azithromycin distributions have been shown to reduce mortality among pre-school children in sub-Saharan Africa. It is unclear what mediates this mortality reduction, but one possibility is that antibiotics function as growth promoters for young children.Methods and findings24 rural Ethiopian communities that had received biannual mass azithromycin distributions over the previous four years were enrolled in a parallel-group, cluster-randomized trial. Communities were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to either continuation of biannual oral azithromycin (20mg/kg for children, 1 g for adults) or to no programmatic antibiotics over the 36 months of the study period. All community members 6 months and older were eligible for the intervention. The primary outcome was ocular chlamydia; height and weight were measured as secondary outcomes on children less than 60 months of age at months 12 and 36. Study participants were not masked; anthropometrists were not informed of the treatment allocation. Anthropometric measurements were collected for 282 children aged 0-36 months at the month 12 assessment and 455 children aged 0-59 months at the month 36 assessment, including 207 children who had measurements at both time points. After adjusting for age and sex, children were slightly but not significantly taller in the biannually treated communities (84.0 cm, 95%CI 83.2-84.8, in the azithromycin-treated communities vs. 83.7 cm, 95%CI 82.9-84.5, in the untreated communities; mean difference 0.31 cm, 95%CI -0.85 to 1.47, P = 0.60). No adverse events were reported.ConclusionsPeriodic mass azithromycin distributions for trachoma did not demonstrate a strong impact on childhood growth.Trial registrationThe TANA II trial was registered on clinicaltrials.gov #NCT01202331

Separation of Test-Free Propositional Dynamic Logics over Context-Free Languages

For a class L of languages let PDL[L] be an extension of Propositional Dynamic Logic which allows programs to be in a language of L rather than just to be regular. If L contains a non-regular language, PDL[L] can express non-regular properties, in contrast to pure PDL. For regular, visibly pushdown and deterministic context-free languages, the separation of the respective PDLs can be proven by automata-theoretic techniques. However, these techniques introduce non-determinism on the automata side. As non-determinism is also the difference between DCFL and CFL, these techniques seem to be inappropriate to separate PDL[DCFL] from PDL[CFL]. Nevertheless, this separation is shown but for programs without test operators.Comment: In Proceedings GandALF 2011, arXiv:1106.081