Realizing live sequence charts in SystemVerilog.

The design of an embedded control system starts with an investigation of properties and behaviors of the process evolving within its environment, and an analysis of the requirement for its safety performance. In early stages, system requirements are often specified as scenarios of behavior using sequence charts for different use cases. This specification must be precise, intuitive and expressive enough to capture different aspects of embedded control systems. As a rather rich and useful extension to the classical message sequence charts, live sequence charts (LSC), which provide a rich collection of constructs for specifying both possible and mandatory behaviors, are very suitable for designing an embedded control system. However, it is not a trivial task to realize a high-level design model in executable program codes effectively and correctly. This paper tackles the challenging task by providing a mapping algorithm to automatically synthesize SystemVerilog programs from given LSC specifications

Dynamics of zonal flow-like structures in the edge of the TJ-II stellarator

The dynamics of fluctuating electric field structures in the edge of the TJ-II stellarator, that display zonal flow-like traits, is studied. These structures have been shown to be global and affect particle transport dynamically [J.A. Alonso et al., Nucl. Fus. 52 063010 (2012)]. In this article we discuss possible drive (Reynolds stress) and damping (Neoclassical viscosity, geodesic transfer) mechanisms for the associated ExB velocity. We show that: (a) while the observed turbulence-driven forces can provide the necessary perpendicular acceleration, a causal relation could not be firmly established, possibly because of the locality of the Reynolds stress measurements, (b) the calculated neoclassical viscosity and damping times are comparable to the observed zonal flow relaxation times, and (c) although an accompanying density modulation is observed to be associated to the zonal flow, it is not consistent with the excitation of pressure side-bands, like those present in geodesic acoustic oscillations, caused by the compression of the ExB flow field

New results for a photon-photon collider

We present new results from studies in progress on physics at a two-photon collider. We report on the sensitivity to top squark parameters of MSSM Higgs boson production in two-photon collisions; Higgs boson decay to two photons; radion production in models of warped extra dimensions; chargino pair production; sensitivity to the trilinear Higgs boson coupling; charged Higgs boson pair production; and we discuss the backgrounds produced by resolved photon-photon interactions.Comment: 17 pages, 15 figure

Minimum Conductivity and Evidence for Phase Transitions in Ultra-clean Bilayer Graphene

Bilayer graphene (BLG) at the charge neutrality point (CNP) is strongly susceptible to electronic interactions, and expected to undergo a phase transition into a state with spontaneous broken symmetries. By systematically investigating a large number of singly- and doubly-gated bilayer graphene (BLG) devices, we show that an insulating state appears only in devices with high mobility and low extrinsic doping. This insulating state has an associated transition temperature Tc~5K and an energy gap of ~3 meV, thus strongly suggesting a gapped broken symmetry state that is destroyed by very weak disorder. The transition to the intrinsic broken symmetry state can be tuned by disorder, out-of-plane electric field, or carrier density

Gap fluctuations, Cooper pairs with finite center-of-mass momentum, and suppression of superconductivity in inhomogeneous systems with dopant superpuddles agglomerates

Spatially extended aggregates of dopants are ubiquitous in a plethora of granular superconductors, forming a droplet network that is very important to their characterization and to the description of their superconducting properties. At the same time, one of the most studied classes of superconducting materials are the high-temperature superconductors, where special attention is given to the hole-doped cuprates, where the carrier concentration is controlled by the amount of interstitial oxygen dopants. In this context, the formation of spatially inhomogeneous aggregates of interstitial oxygen atoms, in the form of nanosized superpuddles, is not only relevant, but also a subject of intense recent experimental and theoretical surveys. Following these efforts, in this work we investigate the consequences of the presence of networks of inhomogeneously distributed dopant superpuddles on the superconducting state. Starting from the inhomogeneous extended disordered background brought by the network of superpuddles, we demonstrate, with the aid of an effective interaction between electrons mediated by the local vibrational degrees of freedom of each puddle, that the Cooper pairs arising from an attractive interaction in an inhomogeneous medium have a finite center-of-mass momentum, $\mathbf{p}$, that breaks up the Cooper channel. Furthermore, we derive an analytical expression for the amplitude of the superconducting gap, $\Delta_{\mathbf{k}}$, in terms of disorder and finite center-of-mass momentum and show that amplitude fluctuations are induced in the superconducting state by the presence of the superpuddles, where both the gap and the critical temperature are reduced by disorder and finite momentum pairs. Finally, we discuss our findings in the context of synchronized networks of superconducting oxygen nano-puddles in cuprates and in other granular superconducting systems.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure

Online Teaching Readiness of the Faculty of Aurora State College of Technology, Baler, Aurora, Philippines

The online teaching readiness of the faculty of Aurora State College of Technology in Baler, Aurora, Philippines was surveyed from April to May 2020. A survey research design using a questionnaire was employed where quantitative data were obtained. The respondents were all ASCOT faculty except those who were on study leave. The sociodemographic profile of the respondents revealed that most of respondents were male (55.1%) from the age range of 20-29 (34.6%).  Mostly from the Department of Arts and Sciences (32.1%) living within Baler, Aurora (53.8%), and had 0-9 years of teaching experience (47.4%). Perceived readiness of faculty in online teaching revealed that faculty are ready but needs improvement for online teaching based on technological readiness (3.871) and cultural readiness (3. 788). Using ANOVA at 5% level of significance and Independent sample t-test, it was found out that faculty readiness in online teaching is significantly different when grouped according to their academic department, age group and sex. On the other hand, the result revealed that there is no significant difference among faculty when grouped according to place of residence and years of teaching. Post hoc comparisons using the Tukey HSD test showed that faculty from the Information Technology Department has higher level of readiness for online teaching with a mean score of 4.414 compared to 3.470 and 3.579 scores of Education Department and Agriculture and Aquatic Sciences, respectively

Integrated Assessment of Climate Change Impacts and Urban Resilience: From Climate and Hydrological Hazards to Risk Analysis and Measures

This Special Issue brings together recent research findings related to urban resilience, in particular taking into account climate change impacts and hydrological hazards. Taking advantage of the work done in the H2020 RESCCUE project, 12 different papers dealing with several issues related to the resilience of urban areas have been published. Due to the complexity of cities, urban resilience management is one of the key challenges that our societies have to deal with in the near future. In addition, urban resilience is a transversal and multi-sectorial issue, affecting different urban services, several hazards, and all the steps of the risk management cycle. This is precisely why the papers contained in this Special Issue focus on varied subjects, such as impact assessments, urban resilience assessments, adaptation strategies, flood risk and urban services, always focusing on at least two of these topics

Radiative decay Z_H-> \gamma A_H in the little Higgs model with T-parity

In the little Higgs model with T-parity (LHTM), the only tree-level kinematically allowed two-body decay of the Z_H boson is Z_H-> A_H H and thus one-loop induced two-body decays may have a significant rate. We study the Z_H-> \gamma A_H decay, which is induced at the one-loop level by a fermion triangle and is interesting as it depends on the mechanism of anomaly cancellation of the model. All the relevant two- and three-body decays of the Z_H gauge boson arising at the tree-level are also calculated. We consider a small region of the parameter space where the scale of the symmetry breaking f is still allowed to be as low as 500 GeV by electroweak precision data. We first analyze the scenario of a Higgs boson with a mass of 120 GeV. We found that the Z_H->\gamma A_H branching ratio can be of the order of a tree-level three-body decay and may be at the reach of detection at the LHC for f close to 500 GeV, but it may be difficult to detect for f=1 TeV. There is also an scenario where the Higgs boson has an intermediate mass such that the Z_H-> A_H H decay is closed, the Z_H-> \gamma A_H gets considerably enhanced and the chances of detection get a large boost.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures, 2 table