Low-Effort Specification Debugging and Analysis

Reactive synthesis deals with the automated construction of implementations of reactive systems from their specifications. To make the approach feasible in practice, systems engineers need effective and efficient means of debugging these specifications. In this paper, we provide techniques for report-based specification debugging, wherein salient properties of a specification are analyzed, and the result presented to the user in the form of a report. This provides a low-effort way to debug specifications, complementing high-effort techniques including the simulation of synthesized implementations. We demonstrate the usefulness of our report-based specification debugging toolkit by providing examples in the context of generalized reactivity(1) synthesis.Comment: In Proceedings SYNT 2014, arXiv:1407.493

Combining extension services with agricultural credit

India has nearly 90 million farm households. More than 80 percent of these farmers operate on a small or marginal scale, farming less than two hectares of land. They also usually have one or two buffaloes or cows, reared for milk and dung. Most of these small and marginal farmers fall below the poverty line. To reduce overall poverty in India, it is important to enhance the incomes of small and marginal farmers. One way to do that is to provide credit so they can get access to yield-enhancing inputs like seed, fertilizer, and cattle feed, as well as acquire irrigation pumps and crossbred cattle. But these kinds of investments alone will not raise farmers’ incomes. Agricultural and livestock development services are also crucial to give farmers knowledge of improved practices and strengthen their links to markets. BASIX is an Indian livelihood promotion institution working with more than a million poor households. Its mission is to promote sustainable livelihoods for a large number of rural poor people and women. When it started in 1996, BASIX’s primary focus was delivering microcredit to its customers. In 2001, however, BASIX asked the Indian Market Research Bureau to carry out an impact assessment, and the results were rather disappointing. Only 52 percent of the customers, who had received at least three rounds of microcredit from BASIX, showed a significant increase in their income (compared with a control group); 25 percent reported no change in income level; and 23 percent reported a decline in their income level. BASIX then carried out a detailed study of those who had experienced no increase or a decline in income and found that the reasons for these results could be grouped into three factors: 1. unmanaged risk; 2. low productivity; and 3. unfavorable terms in input and output market transactions.agricultural extension, BASIX, Rural poverty, Sustainable livelihoods,

A Survey on Flip Flop Replacement to Latch on Various Design

This paper presents survey for the replacement of flip flop to latches and the advantages of the latch based sequential design Flip flop are the major part of the design a sequential elements and this flip flop has more disadvantages as performance decreases and area increases. An alternate method to increase the performance and reduce the area size latches. Latches are used instead of flip flops in certain places to increase the performance and decrease the area

Robust Model Predictive Control for Signal Temporal Logic Synthesis

Most automated systems operate in uncertain or adversarial conditions, and have to be capable of reliably reacting to changes in the environment. The focus of this paper is on automatically synthesizing reactive controllers for cyber-physical systems subject to signal temporal logic (STL) specifications. We build on recent work that encodes STL specifications as mixed integer linear constraints on the variables of a discrete-time model of the system and environment dynamics. To obtain a reactive controller, we present solutions to the worst-case model predictive control (MPC) problem using a suite of mixed integer linear programming techniques. We demonstrate the comparative effectiveness of several existing worst-case MPC techniques, when applied to the problem of control subject to temporal logic specifications; our empirical results emphasize the need to develop specialized solutions for this domain

Structure of Carbon Nanotube-dendrimer composite

Using all atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulations we report the microscopic picture of the nanotube-dendrimer complex for PAMAM dendrimer of generation 2 to 4 and carbon nanotube of chirality (6,5). We find compact wrapping conformations of dendrimer onto the nanotube surface for all the three generations of PAMAM dendrimer. The degree of wrapping is more for non-protonated dendrimer compared to the protonated dendrimer. For comparison we also study the interaction of another dendrimer, poly(propyl ether imine) (PETIM), with nanotube and show that PAMAM dendrimer interacts strongly as compared to PETIM dendrimer as is evident from the distance of closest approach as well as the number of close contacts between the nanotube and dendrimer. We also calculate the binding energy between the nanotube and the dendrimer using MM/PBSA methods and attribute the strong binding to the charge transfer between them. Dendrimer wrapping on CNT will make it soluble and can act as an efficient dispersing agent for nanotube

French IPO returns and subsequent security offerings:Signaling hypothesis versus market feedback hypothesis

In this article, we look at two competing hypotheses to explain IPO underpricing in France when a seasoned offering follows the IPO. The first hypothesis assumes that the initial underpricing is a signal from a high quality firm in the anticipation of a subsequent equity issue at a higher price. The second competing hypothesis assumes that the market transmits to managers their valuation of the company. Our database examines two types of subsequent risky issuances: on the one hand, stocks and on the other hand, hybrid issuances (such as convertible bonds, bonds with attached warrants, and stocks with attached warrants). Further, in the French market, firms may be introduced through different mechanisms, which are not equally compatible with both hypotheses. We show that the initial underpricing is greater if a stock issuance rather than other security offerings of a convertible nature subsequently follow the IPO. We find evidence in favor of the signaling hypothesis in the case of fixed price IPOs. For the auction-like procedures, we show that the initial investors' demand, rather than post-IPO performance, determines the type of security that is issued, but has no effect on the financing decision itself. The market feedback hypothesis is therefore only weakly supported: a poor market message does not keep managers from expanding, but rather encourages them to use stage financing rather than straight equity.IPOs, seasoned equity offerings, convertible bond issues, signaling hypothesis, market-feedback hypothesis