Reliability Analysis of Component-Based Systems with Multiple Failure Modes

This paper presents a novel approach to the reliability modeling and analysis of a component-based system that allows dealing with multiple failure modes and studying the error propagation among components. The proposed model permits to specify the components attitude to produce, propagate, transform or mask different failure modes. These component-level reliability specifications together with information about systems global structure allow precise estimation of reliability properties by means of analytical closed formulas, probabilistic modelchecking or simulation methods. To support the rapid identification of components that could heavily affect systems reliability, we also show how our modeling approach easily support the automated estimation of the system sensitivity to variations in the reliability properties of its components. The results of this analysis allow system designers and developers to identify critical components where it is worth spending additional improvement efforts

Using Administrative Data to Count and Classify Households with Local Applications

Households rather than individuals are being increasingly used for research and to target and evaluate public policy. As a result accurate and timely household level statistics have become an increasing necessity especially at local level. However, official sources of information on households are fragmented with significant gaps and inaccuracies that limit their usefulness. This paper reviews present statistical arrangements and then describes a new approach to data collection and household classification which combine various local administrative sources. An intermediate step is the creation of local population counts which are converted into household types and these methods are described in two companion papers previously published in this journal. The utility and advantages of the approach are demonstrated using the example of the six Olympic London Boroughs for whom the data collection was undertaken in 2011 and the analysis subsequently

Starfire Optical Range 3.5-m telescope adaptive optical system

A 941 channel, 1500 Hertz frame rate adaptive optical (AO) system has been installed and tested in the coude path of the 3.5m telescope at the USAF Research Laboratory Starfire Optical Range. This paper describes the design and measured performance of the principal components comprising this system and present sample results from the first closed-loop test of the system on stars and an artificial source simulator

Measurement of higher cumulants of net-charge multiplicity distributions in Au++Au collisions at sNN=7.7−200\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=7.7-200 GeV

We report the measurement of cumulants ($C_n, n=1\ldots4$) of the net-charge distributions measured within pseudorapidity ($|\eta|<0.35$) in Au$+$Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=7.7-200$ GeV with the PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The ratios of cumulants (e.g. $C_1/C_2$, $C_3/C_1$) of the net-charge distributions, which can be related to volume independent susceptibility ratios, are studied as a function of centrality and energy. These quantities are important to understand the quantum-chromodynamics phase diagram and possible existence of a critical end point. The measured values are very well described by expectation from negative binomial distributions. We do not observe any nonmonotonic behavior in the ratios of the cumulants as a function of collision energy. The measured values of $C_1/C_2 = \mu/\sigma^2$ and $C_3/C_1 = S\sigma^3/\mu$ can be directly compared to lattice quantum-chromodynamics calculations and thus allow extraction of both the chemical freeze-out temperature and the baryon chemical potential at each center-of-mass energy.Comment: 512 authors, 8 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. v2 is version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. C as a Rapid Communication. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.htm

Primordialists and Constructionists: a typology of theories of religion

This article adopts categories from nationalism theory to classify theories of religion. Primordialist explanations are grounded in evolutionary psychology and emphasize the innate human demand for religion. Primordialists predict that religion does not decline in the modern era but will endure in perpetuity. Constructionist theories argue that religious demand is a human construct. Modernity initially energizes religion, but subsequently undermines it. Unpacking these ideal types is necessary in order to describe actual theorists of religion. Three distinctions within primordialism and constructionism are relevant. Namely those distinguishing: a) materialist from symbolist forms of constructionism; b) theories of origins from those pertaining to the reproduction of religion; and c) within reproduction, between theories of religious persistence and secularization. This typology helps to make sense of theories of religion by classifying them on the basis of their causal mechanisms, chronology and effects. In so doing, it opens up new sightlines for theory and research

Developing an Individual-level Geodemographic Classification

Geodemographics is a spatially explicit classification of socio-economic data, which can be used to describe and analyse individuals by where they live. Geodemographic information is used by the public sector for planning and resource allocation but it also has considerable use within commercial sector applications. Early geodemographic systems, such as the UK’s ACORN (A Classification of Residential Neighbourhoods), used only area-based census data, but more recent systems have added supplementary layers of information, e.g. credit details and survey data, to provide better discrimination between classes. Although much more data has now become available, geodemographic systems are still fundamentally built from area-based census information. This is partly because privacy laws require release of census data at an aggregate level but mostly because much of the research remains proprietary. Household level classifications do exist but they are often based on regressions between area and household data sets. This paper presents a different approach for creating a geodemographic classification at the individual level using only census data. A generic framework is presented, which classifies data from the UK Census Small Area Microdata and then allocates the resulting clusters to a synthetic population created via microsimulation. The framework is then applied to the creation of an individual-based system for the city of Leeds, demonstrated using data from the 2001 census, and is further validated using individual and household survey data from the British Household Panel Survey

Single electron yields from semileptonic charm and bottom hadron decays in Au++Au collisions at sNN=200\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200 GeV

The PHENIX Collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider has measured open heavy-flavor production in minimum bias Au$+$Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=200$ GeV via the yields of electrons from semileptonic decays of charm and bottom hadrons. Previous heavy-flavor electron measurements indicated substantial modification in the momentum distribution of the parent heavy quarks due to the quark-gluon plasma created in these collisions. For the first time, using the PHENIX silicon vertex detector to measure precision displaced tracking, the relative contributions from charm and bottom hadrons to these electrons as a function of transverse momentum are measured in Au$+$Au collisions. We compare the fraction of electrons from bottom hadrons to previously published results extracted from electron-hadron correlations in $p$$+$$p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=200$ GeV and find the fractions to be similar within the large uncertainties on both measurements for $p_T>4$ GeV/$c$. We use the bottom electron fractions in Au$+$Au and $p$$+$$p$ along with the previously measured heavy flavor electron $R_{AA}$ to calculate the $R_{AA}$ for electrons from charm and bottom hadron decays separately. We find that electrons from bottom hadron decays are less suppressed than those from charm for the region $3<p_T<4$ GeV/$c$.Comment: 432 authors, 33 pages, 23 figures, 2 tables, 2011 data. v2 is version accepted for publication by Phys. Rev. C. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.htm

Transverse energy production and charged-particle multiplicity at midrapidity in various systems from sNN=7.7\sqrt{s_{NN}}=7.7 to 200 GeV

Measurements of midrapidity charged particle multiplicity distributions, $dN_{\rm ch}/d\eta$, and midrapidity transverse-energy distributions, $dE_T/d\eta$, are presented for a variety of collision systems and energies. Included are distributions for Au$+$Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=200$, 130, 62.4, 39, 27, 19.6, 14.5, and 7.7 GeV, Cu$+$Cu collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=200$ and 62.4 GeV, Cu$+$Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=200$ GeV, U$+$U collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=193$ GeV, $d$$+$Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=200$ GeV, $^{3}$He$+$Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=200$ GeV, and $p$$+$$p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=200$ GeV. Centrality-dependent distributions at midrapidity are presented in terms of the number of nucleon participants, $N_{\rm part}$, and the number of constituent quark participants, $N_{q{\rm p}}$. For all $A$$+$$A$ collisions down to $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=7.7$ GeV, it is observed that the midrapidity data are better described by scaling with $N_{q{\rm p}}$ than scaling with $N_{\rm part}$. Also presented are estimates of the Bjorken energy density, $\varepsilon_{\rm BJ}$, and the ratio of $dE_T/d\eta$ to $dN_{\rm ch}/d\eta$, the latter of which is seen to be constant as a function of centrality for all systems.Comment: 706 authors, 32 pages, 20 figures, 34 tables, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2012 data. v2 is version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Measurement of jet-medium interactions via direct photon-hadron correlations in Au++Au and dd++Au collisions at sNN=200\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=200 GeV

We present direct photon-hadron correlations in 200 GeV/A Au$+$Au, $d$$+$Au and $p$$+$$p$ collisions, for direct photon $p_T$ from 5--12 GeV/$c$, collected by the PHENIX Collaboration in the years from 2006 to 2011. We observe no significant modification of jet fragmentation in $d$$+$Au collisions, indicating that cold nuclear matter effects are small or absent. Hadrons carrying a large fraction of the quark's momentum are suppressed in Au$+$Au compared to $p$$+$$p$ and $d$$+$Au. As the momentum fraction decreases, the yield of hadrons in Au$+$Au increases to an excess over the yield in $p$$+$$p$ collisions. The excess is at large angles and at low hadron $p_T$ and is most pronounced for hadrons associated with lower momentum direct photons. Comparison to theoretical calculations suggests that the hadron excess arises from medium response to energy deposited by jets.Comment: 578 authors from 80 institutions, 11 pages, 7 figures, data from 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011. v2 is version accepted for publication in Physical Review C. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.htm