2010 CAV award announcement

The 2010 CAV (Computer-Aided Verification) award was awarded to Kenneth L. McMillan of Cadence Research Laboratories for a series of fundamental contributions resulting in significant advances in scalability of model checking tools. The annual award recognizes a specific fundamental contribution or a series of outstanding contributions to the CAV field.     

Optimized temporal monitors for SystemC

SystemC is a modeling language built as an extension of C++. Its growing popularity and the increasing complexity of designs have motivated research efforts aimed at the verification of SystemC models using assertion-based verification (ABV), where the designer asserts properties that capture the design intent in a formal language such as PSL or SVA. The model then can be verified against the properties using runtime or formal verification techniques. In this paper we focus on automated generation of runtime monitors from temporal properties. Our focus is on minimizing runtime overhead, rather than monitor size or monitor-generation time. We identify four issues in monitor generation: state minimization, alphabet representation, alphabet minimization, and monitor encoding. We conduct extensive experimentation and identify a combination of settings that offers the best performance in terms of runtime overhead.     

Divided Attention in Younger and Older Adults: Effects of Strategy and Relatedness on Memory Performance and Secondary Task Costs.

Divided attention at encoding leads to a significant decline in memory performance, whereas divided attention during retrieval has relatively little effect; nevertheless, retrieval carries significant secondary task costs, especially for older adults. The authors further investigated the effects of divided attention in younger and older adults by using a cued-recall task and by measuring retrieval accuracy, retrieval latency, and the temporal distribution of attentional costs at encoding and retrieval. An age-related memory deficit was reduced by pair relatedness, whereas strategy instructions benefited both age groups equally. Attentional costs were greater for retrieval than for encoding, especially for older adults. These findings are interpreted in light of notions of an age-related associative deficit (M. Naveh-Benjamin, 2000) and age-related differences in the use of self-initiated activities and environmental support (F. I. M. Craik, 1983, 1986). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

New procedures for minimizing the torque ripple in switched reluctance motors by optimizing the phase-current profile

This paper introduces five new optimization procedures for the minimization of the torque ripple in the switched reluctance motor (SRM). These new procedures are based on the optimization of the phase-current profile. Two optimization techniques, the simplex method and the genetic algorithm, are adapted to these optimization procedures. The paper compares an older optimization procedure, the optimum harmonic current injection procedure, and the new optimization procedure, and presents conclusions.     

An exact high order beam element

This work gives the exact stiffness coefficients for an high order isotropic beam element. The terms are found directly from the solutions of the differential equations that describe the deformations of the cross-section according to the high order theory, which include cubic variation of the axial displacements over the cross-section of the beam. The model has six degrees of freedom at the two ends, one transverse displacement and two rotations, and the end forces are a shear force and two end moments. Also given are the equivalent end forces and moments for several cases of loading along the member. The components of the end moments are investigated, and are found for exact results. Comparison is made with the Bernoulli-Euler and Timoshenko beam models.     

Random 3-SAT: The Plot Thickens

This paper presents an experimental investigation of the following questions: how does the average-case complexity of random 3-SAT, understood as a function of the order (number of variables) for fixed density (ratio of number of clauses to order) instances, depend on the density? Is there a phase transition in which the complexity shifts from polynomial to exponential in the order? Is the transition dependent or independent of the solver? Our experiment design uses three complete SAT solvers embodying different algorithms: GRASP, CPLEX, and CUDD. We observe new phase transitions for all three solvers, where the median running time shifts from polynomial in the order to exponential. The location of the phase transition appears to be solver-dependent. GRASP shifts from polynomial to exponential complexity near the density of 3.8, CPLEX shifts near density 3, while CUDD exhibits this transition between densities of 0.1 and 0.5. This experimental result underscores the dependence between the solver and the complexity phase transition, and challenges the widely held belief that random 3-SAT exhibits a phase transition in computational complexity very close to the crossover point.     

Reasoning about Knowledge: A Response by the Authors

Minds and Machines -     

The Breakdown of Migdal's Theorem and the Divergence of Electron Polarizations in HTSC

We assume that Fermi surface nesting is a common feature in all oxide high temperature superconductors (HTSC) of perovskite or layered-perovskite structure. We show that this feature results in the breakdown of the Migdal's theorem, and the singularity of some electronic polarizations. These singularities trigger various kinds of instabilities in these materials.     

The Dipole Correction Method for Extracting Excited State Potentials and Electronic Transition Dipoles from Fluorescence Data

We have developed a new inversion scheme for the accurate extraction of excited state potentials from fluorescence line positions and line strengths which does not make use of the Franck Condon Approximation (FCA). Our “dipole correction” method also enables the extraction of the coordinate dependence of the electronic transition dipoles. The accuracy of the potential energy surfaces (PES) thus extracted is much higher than that of the FCA- derived PES. The procedure, illustrated for the Na₂ A(¹Σ⁺_u) → X(¹Σ⁺_g) P-branch emission, results in global errors of 0.1 cm⁻¹, and average errors near the PES minimum of 0.03 cm⁻¹, with A → X electronic transition dipole function accuracies better than 1×10⁻³ Debye. We also show that it is possible to use emission data from a few select states: Global errors as small as 0.08 cm⁻¹ for the Na₂ B(¹Π_u) PES, using emissions data from only the s=0–5 low-lying levels or the s=20–23 states, are demonstrated.     

Combinatorial Optimization and Performance Analysis of a Multi-arm Cartesian Robotic Fruit Harvester—Extensions of Graph Coloring

A mobile melon robotic harvester consisting of multiple Cartesian manipulators, each with three degrees of freedom, is being developed. In order to design an optimal robot in terms of number of arms, manipulator capabilities, and robot speed, a method of allocating the fruits to be picked by each manipulator in a way that yields the maximum harvest has been developed. Such a method has already been devised for a multi-arm robot with 2DOF each. The maximum robotic harvesting problem was shown there to be an example of the maximum k-colorable subgraph problem (MKCSP) on an interval graph. However, for manipulators with 3DOF, the additional longitudinal motion results in variable intervals. To overcome this issue, we devise a new model based on the color-dependent interval graph (CDIG). This enables the harvest by multiple robotic arms to be modeled as a modified version of the MKCSP. Based on previous research, we develop a greedy algorithm that solves the problem in polynomial time, and prove its optimality using induction. As with the multi-arm 2DOF robot, when simulated numerous times on a field of randomly distributed fruits, the algorithm yields a nearly identical percentage of fruit harvested for given robot parameters. The results of the probabilistic analysis developed for the 2DOF robot was modified to yield a formula for the expected harvest ratio of the 3DOF robot. The significance of this method is that it enables selecting the most efficient actuators, number of manipulators, and robot forward velocity for maximal robotic fruit harvest.