Perturbative superluminal censorship and the null energy condition

We argue that ``effective'' superluminal travel, potentially caused by the tipping over of light cones in Einstein gravity, is always associated with violations of the null energy condition (NEC). This is most easily seen by working perturbatively around Minkowski spacetime, where we use linearized Einstein gravity to show that the NEC forces the light cones to contract (narrow). Given the NEC, the Shapiro time delay in any weak gravitational field is always a delay relative to the Minkowski background, and never an advance. Furthermore, any object travelling within the lightcones of the weak gravitational field is similarly delayed with respect to the minimum traversal time possible in the background Minkowski geometry.Comment: 5 pages. Uses AIP proceedings style (aipproc.sty). To appear in the Proceedings of the Eighth Canadian Conference on General Relativity and Relativistic Astrophysics. (McGill University, Montreal, June 1999). To be published by AIP Pres

Directed unions of local quadratic transforms of regular local rings and pullbacks

Let $\{ R_n, {\mathfrak m}_n \}_{n \ge 0}$ be an infinite sequence of regular local rings with $R_{n+1}$ birationally dominating $R_n$ and ${\mathfrak m}_nR_{n+1}$ a principal ideal of $R_{n+1}$ for each $n$. We examine properties of the integrally closed local domain $S = \bigcup_{n \ge 0}R_n$.Comment: 23 pages; comments welcom

Macrofossils and pollen representing forests of the pre-Taupo volcanic eruption (c. 1850 yr BP) era at Pureora and Benneydale, central North Island, New Zealand.

Micro- and macrofossil data from the remains of forests overwhelmed and buried at Pureora and Benneydale during the Taupo eruption (c. 1850 conventional radiocarbon yr BP) were compared. Classification of relative abundance data separated the techniques, rather than the locations, because the two primary clusters comprised pollen and litter/wood. This indicates that the pollen:litter/wood within-site comparisons (Pureora and Benneydale are 20 km apart) are not reliable. Plant macrofossils represented mainly local vegetation, while pollen assemblages represented a combination of local and regional vegetation. However, using ranked abundance and presence/absence data, both macrofossils and pollen at Pureora and Benneydale indicated conifer/broadleaved forest, of similar forest type and species composition at each site. This suggests that the forests destroyed by the eruption were typical of mid-altitude west Taupo forests, and that either data set (pollen or macrofossils) would have been adequate for regional forest interpretation. The representation of c. 1850 yr BP pollen from the known buried forest taxa was generally consistent with trends determined by modern comparisons between pollen and their source vegetation, but with a few exceptions. A pollen profile from between the Mamaku Tephra (c. 7250 yr BP) and the Taupo Ignimbrite indicated that the Benneydale forest had been markedly different in species dominance compared with the forest that was destroyed during the Taupo eruption. These differences probably reflect changes in drainage, and improvements in climate and/or soil fertility over the middle Holocene

A Run-Time Decision Procedure for Responsive Computing Systems

A responsive computing system is a hybrid of real-time, distributed and fault-tolerant systems. In such a system, severe consequences will occur if the logical and physical specifications of the system are not met. In this paper, we present a logic, Interval Temporal Logic (ITL), to specify responsive systems and give decision procedures to verify properties of the system at run-time as follows. First, we collect, during execution, events occurring in the system to represent a distributed computation. Next, we specify properties of the system using ITL formulas. Finally, we apply the decision procedures to determine satisfaction of the formulas. Thus, we can verify properties of the system at run-time using these decision procedures

Constructing an Interval Temporal Logic for Real-Time Systems

A real-time system is one that involves control of one or more physical devices with essential timing requirements. Examples of these systems are command and control systems, process control systems, flight control systems, and the space shuttle avionics systems. The characteristics of these systems are that severe consequences will occur if the logical and physical timing specifications of the systems are not met. Formal specification and verification are among the techniques to achieve reliable software for real-time systems, in which testing may be impossible or too dangerous to perform. This paper presents a modal logic, Interval Temporal , built upon a classical predicate logic In this logic system, we consider formulas that can be used to reason about timing properties of systems, in particular, responsiveness assertions. A responsiveness assertion describes constraints that a program must satisfy within an interval. Thus, it can be utilized to characterize behaviors of life-critical systems. We assume that a program P can be identified with a theory, a collection of formulas characterizing sequences of states of P with arbitrary initial states. In the following, we describe syntax and semantics of the logic, present a proof rule for responsiveness assertions, and show soundness and relative completeness of responsiveness assertions that we consider. There are other approaches to build temporal logics for real-time systems, which are included in bibliography

Ensuring the Satisfaction of a Temporal Specification at Run-Time

A responsive computing system is a hybrid of real-time, distributed and fault-tolerant systems. In such a system, severe consequences can occur if the run-time behavior does not conform to the expected behavior or specifications. In this paper, we present a formal approach to ensure satisfaction of the specifications in the operational environment as follows. First we specify behavior of the systems using Interval Temporal Logic (ITL). Next we give algorithms for trace checking of programs in such systems. Finally, we present a fully distributed run-time evaluation system which causally orders the events of the system during its execution and checks this run-time behavior against its ITL specification. The approach is illustrated using a train-set example

Operational Evaluation of Responsiveness Properties

In this paper, a new technique for ensuring run-time satisfaction of properties-specifically responsiveness property, a subset of liveness property, in responsive systems, is presented. Since whether the run-time behavior of a system is satisfied depends on the execution (operational) environment, we develop a translation which takes into account the constraints in the operational environment, and generates histories for each process in the system. Thus, every process can utilize its history to operationally evaluate the system behavior and signal errors if its history is violated. Therefore, this technique provides software safety, handles error-detection, and ensures run-time satisfaction of responsiveness property in the operational environment. To illustrate this approach a train set example is presented

Future of oil and gas development in the western Amazon

The western Amazon is one of the world's last high-biodiversity wilderness areas, characterized by extraordinary species richness and large tracts of roadless humid tropical forest. It is also home to an active hydrocarbon (oil and gas) sector, characterized by operations in extremely remote areas that require new access routes. Here, we present the first integrated analysis of the hydrocarbon sector and its associated road-building in the western Amazon. Specifically, we document the (a) current panorama, including location and development status of all oil and gas discoveries, of the sector, and (b) current and future scenario of access (i.e. access road versus roadless access) to discoveries. We present an updated 2014 western Amazon hydrocarbon map illustrating that oil and gas blocks now cover 733 414 km(2), an area much larger than the US state of Texas, and have been expanding since the last assessment in 2008. In terms of access, we documented 11 examples of the access road model and six examples of roadless access across the region. Finally, we documented 35 confirmed and/or suspected untapped hydrocarbon discoveries across the western Amazon. In the Discussion, we argue that if these reserves must be developed, use of the offshore inland model-a method that strategically avoids the construction of access roads-is crucial to minimizing ecological impacts in one of the most globally important conservation regions