Algebraic–coalgebraic specification in CoCasl

We introduce CoCasl as a light-weight but expressive coalgebraic extension of the algebraic specification language Casl. CoCasl allows the nested combination of algebraic datatypes and coalgebraic process types. Moreover, it provides syntactic sugar for an observer-indexed modal logic that allows e.g. expressing fairness properties. This logic includes a generic definition of modal operators for observers with structured equational result types. We prove existence of final models for specifications in a format that allows the use of equationally specified initial datatypes as observations, as well as modal axioms. The use of CoCasl is illustrated by specifications of the process algebras CSP and CCS.     

ReSpecT Nets: Towards an Analysis Methodology for ReSpecT Specifications

A key feature for infrastructures providing coordination services is the ability to define the behaviour of coordination abstractions according to the requirements identified at design-time. We take as a representative for this scenario the logic-based language ReSpecT (Reaction Specification Tuples), used to program the reactive behaviour of tuple centres. ReSpecT specifications are at the core of the engineering methodology underlying the TuCSoN infrastructure, and are therefore the “conceptual place” where formal methods can be fruitfully applied to guarantee relevant system properties.In this paper we introduce ReSpecT nets, a formalism that can be used to describe reactive behaviours that can succeed and fail, and that allows for an encoding to Petri nets with inhibitor arcs. ReSpecT nets are introduced to give a core model to a fragment of the ReSpecT language, and to pave the way for devising an analysis methodology including formal verification of safety and liveness properties. In particular, we provide a semantics to ReSpecT specifications through a mapping to ReSpecT nets. The potential of this approach for the analysis of ReSpecT specifications is discussed, presenting initial results for the analysis of safety properties.     

Enantioselective, potentiometric membrane electrodes based on cyclodextrins for the determination of l-histidine

Four enantioselective, potentiometric membrane electrodes based on carbon paste impregnated with α-, β-, 2-hydroxyl-3-trimethylammoniopropyl-β-(as chloride salt) and γ-cyclodextrins (γ-CDs) are proposed for the assay of l-histidine (l-his). The proposed electrodes showed near-Nernstian response over l-his but not over d-histidine (d-his). The recovery of l-his in the presence of d-his was higher than 99.10% with R.S.D. lower than 0.1%. The surfaces of the electrodes are easily renewable by simply polishing on an alumina paper.     

Virtual Organizations in Arigatoni

Arigatoni is a lightweight overlay network that deploys the Global Computing Paradigm over the Internet. Communication for over the behavioral units of the overlay is performed by a simple resource discovery protocol (RDP). Basic Global Computers Units (GC) can communicate by first registering to a brokering service and then by mutually asking and offering services.Colonies and communities are the main entities in the model. A colony is a simple virtual organization composed by exactly one leader and some set (possibly empty) of individuals. A community is a raw set of colonies and global computers (think it as a soup of colonies and global computer without a leader).We present an operational semantics via a labeled transition system, that describes the main operations necessary in the Arigatoni model to perform leader negotiation, joining/leaving a colony, linking two colonies and moving one GC from one colony to another. Our formalization results to be adequate w.r.t. the algorithm performing peer logging/delogging and colony aggregation.     

Supervised ranking in the weka environment

Software for solving the supervised ranking problem is presented. Four variants of the Ordinal Stochastic Dominance Learner (OSDL) are given, together with the space and time complexity of their implementations. It is shown that the described software, which includes two further algorithms for supervised ranking, fits seamlessly into the weka environment.     

Security analysis of the SCO-family using key schedules

The COS-based ciphers SCO-1, SCO-2 and SCO-3 (called the SCO-family) have been designed to improve the security of DDP-based ciphers which are all broken by related-key attacks. In this paper we show that the SCO-family is still vulnerable to related-key attacks: we present related-key differential attacks on a full-round SCO-1, a full-round SCO-2 and an 11-round reduced SCO-3, respectively. The attack on SCO-1 requires 2⁶¹ related-key chosen ciphertexts and 2^120.59 full-round SCO-1 decryptions. For the attack on SCO-2, we require 2⁵⁹ related-key chosen plaintexts and 2^118.42 full-round SCO-2 encryptions, and the 11-round attack on SCO-3 works with 2⁵⁸ related-key chosen plaintexts and 2^117.54 11-round SCO-3 encryptions. This work is the first known cryptanalytic results on the SCO-family.     

Formal ReSpecT in the A&A Perspective

Coordination models and languages have found a new course in the context of MAS (multiagent systems). By re-interpreting results in terms of agent-oriented abstractions, new conceptual spaces are found, which extend the reach of coordination techniques far beyond their original scope. This is for instance the case of coordination media, when recasted in terms of coordination artifacts in the MAS context.In this paper, we take the well-established ReSpecT language for programming tuple centre behaviour, and adopt the A&A (agents and artifacts) meta-model as a perspective to reinterpret, revise, extend and complete it. A formal model of the so-called A&A ReSpecT language is presented, along with an example illustrating its use for MAS coordination.     

A component- and push-based architectural style for ajax applications

A new breed of web application, dubbed ajax, is emerging in response to a limited degree of interactivity in large-grain stateless Web interactions. At the heart of this new approach lies a single page interaction model that facilitates rich interactivity. Also push-based solutions from the distributed systems are being adopted on the web for ajax applications. The field is, however, characterized by the lack of a coherent and precisely described set of architectural concepts. As a consequence, it is rather difficult to understand, assess, and compare the existing approaches. We have studied and experimented with several ajax frameworks trying to understand their architectural properties. In this paper, we summarize four of these frameworks and examine their properties and introduce the spiar architectural style which captures the essence of ajax applications. We describe the guiding software engineering principles and the constraints chosen to induce the desired properties. The style emphasizes user interface component development, intermediary delta-communication between client/server components, and push-based event notification of state changes through the components, to improve a number of properties such as user interactivity, user-perceived latency, data coherence, and ease of development. In addition, we use the concepts and principles to discuss various open issues in ajax frameworks and application development.     

ADF95: Tool for automatic differentiation of a FORTRAN code designed for large numbers of independent variables

ADF95 is a tool to automatically calculate numerical first derivatives for any mathematical expression as a function of user defined independent variables. Accuracy of derivatives is achieved within machine precision. ADF95 may be applied to any FORTRAN 77/90/95 conforming code and requires minimal changes by the user. It provides a new derived data type that holds the value and derivatives and applies forward differencing by overloading all FORTRAN operators and intrinsic functions. An efficient indexing technique leads to a reduced memory usage and a substantially increased performance gain over other available tools with operator overloading. This gain is especially pronounced for sparse systems with large number of independent variables. A wide class of numerical simulations, e.g., those employing implicit solvers, can profit from ADF95.

Program summary

Title of program:ADF95Catalogue identifier: ADVIProgram summary URL:http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/ADVIProgram obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen's University of Belfast, N. IrelandComputer for which the program is designed: all platforms with a FORTRAN 95 compilerProgramming language used:FORTRAN 95No. of lines in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 3103No. of bytes in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 9862Distribution format: tar.gzNature of problem: In many areas in the computational sciences first order partial derivatives for large and complex sets of equations are needed with machine precision accuracy. For example, any implicit or semi-implicit solver requires the computation of the Jacobian matrix, which contains the first derivatives with respect to the independent variables. ADF95 is a software module to facilitate the automatic computation of the first partial derivatives of any arbitrarily complex mathematical FORTRAN expression. The program exploits the sparsity inherited by many set of equations thereby enabling faster computations compared to alternate differentiation toolsSolution method: A class is constructed which applies the chain rule of differentiation to any FORTRAN expression, to compute the first derivatives by forward differencing. An efficient indexing technique leads to a reduced memory usage and a substantially increased performance gain when sparsity can be exploited. From a users point of view, only minimal changes to his/her original code are needed in order to compute the first derivatives of any expression in the codeRestrictions: Processor and memory hardware may restrict both the possible number of independent variables and the computation timeUnusual features:ADF95 can operate on user code that makes use of the array features introduced in FORTRAN 90. A convenient extraction subroutine for the Jacobian matrix is also providedRunning time: In many realistic cases, the evaluation of the first order derivatives of a mathematical expression is only six times slower compared to the evaluation of analytically derived and hard-coded expressions. The actual factor depends on the underlying set of equations for which derivatives are to be calculated, the number of independent variables, the sparsity and on the FORTRAN 95 compiler     

Hydraulic head interpolation using anfis—model selection and sensitivity analysis

The aim of this study is to investigate the efficiency of anfis (adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system) for interpolating hydraulic head in a 40-km² agricultural watershed of the Seine basin (France). Inputs of anfis are Cartesian coordinates and the elevation of the ground. Hydraulic head was measured at 73 locations during a snapshot campaign on September 2009, which characterizes low-water-flow regime in the aquifer unit. The dataset was then split into three subsets using a square-based selection method: a calibration one (55%), a training one (27%), and a test one (18%).First, a method is proposed to select the best anfis model, which corresponds to a sensitivity analysis of anfis to the type and number of membership functions (MF). Triangular, Gaussian, general bell, and spline-based MF are used with 2, 3, 4, and 5 MF per input node. Performance criteria on the test subset are used to select the 5 best anfis models among 16. Then each is used to interpolate the hydraulic head distribution on a (50×50)-m grid, which is compared to the soil elevation. The cells where the hydraulic head is higher than the soil elevation are counted as “error cells.” The anfis model that exhibits the less “error cells” is selected as the best anfis model. The best model selection reveals that anfis models are very sensitive to the type and number of MF. Finally, a sensibility analysis of the best anfis model with four triangular MF is performed on the interpolation grid, which shows that anfis remains stable to error propagation with a higher sensitivity to soil elevation.     

Queries on Xml streams with bounded delay and concurrency

Query answering algorithms on Xml streams check answer candidates on the fly in order to avoid the unnecessary buffering whenever possible. The delay and concurrency of a query are two measures for the degree of their streamability. They count the maximal number of stream elements during the life time for some query answer, and respectively, the maximal number of simultaneously alive answer candidates of a query. We study queries defined by deterministic nested word automata, which subsume large streamable fragments of XPath subject to schema restrictions by DTDs modulo P-time translations. We show that bounded and k-bounded delay and concurrency of such automata-defined queries are all decidable in polynomial time in the size of the automaton. Our results are obtained by P-time reduction to the bounded valuedness problem for recognizable relations between unranked trees, a problem that we show to be decidable in P-time.     

Amperometric determination of l-dopa by nickel hexacyanoferrate film modified gold nanoparticle graphite composite electrode

Surface modification of graphite electrode with nickel hexacyanoferrate (NiHCF) film through 2-mercaptoethylamine (MEA) capped gold nanoparticle (GNP) was achieved by a novel fabrication approach. The NiHCF modified electrode exhibits a distinct pair of redox peaks corresponding to anodic and cathodic reactions of hexacyanoferrate (II/III) of NiHCF with a formal potential of 0.33 V versus SCE. l-Dopa, is a potential chemotherapeutic drug used for the treatment of a neurodegenerative disease like Parkinson's disease (PD). l-Dopa was successfully determined by NiHCF modified electrode in the concentration range of 0.82 μM to 2.5 mM with a good sensitivity of 0.363 μA/μM. A reduction in overpotential of 200 mV with a detection limit of 0.53 μM was obtained. Determination of l-dopa in commercial tablets was also investigated by the proposed sensor.     

The <Emphasis Type="Italic">MAP</Emphasis> + <Emphasis Type="Italic">MAP/PH</Emphasis>/1/<Emphasis Type="Italic">N</Emphasis> queuing system with single and batch arrivals of customers

The single-server queuing system with finite buffer was considered. The customers may arrive one-by-one or in batches. Arrivals of single customers and their batches obey the Markov input processes. The customers from a batch taken for servicing come one at a time at the exponentially distributed time intervals. The numbers of customers in batches are distributed geometrically. The time of customer servicing has a phase-type distribution. The numbers of batches and single customers that may be simultaneously accepted by the system are controllable parameters. The joint distribution of the number of batches and the number of customers in system, loss probabilities, distribution of the time of batch sojourn, and problems of optimization were analyzed.     

udkm1Dsim—A simulation toolkit for 1D ultrafast dynamics in condensed matter

The udkm1Dsim  toolbox is a collection of matlab (MathWorks Inc.) classes and routines to simulate the structural dynamics and the according X-ray diffraction response in one-dimensional crystalline sample structures upon an arbitrary time-dependent external stimulus, e.g. an ultrashort laser pulse. The toolbox provides the capabilities to define arbitrary layered structures on the atomic level including a rich database of corresponding element-specific physical properties. The excitation of ultrafast dynamics is represented by an N$N$-temperature model which is commonly applied for ultrafast optical excitations. Structural dynamics due to thermal stress are calculated by a linear-chain model of masses and springs. The resulting X-ray diffraction response is computed by dynamical X-ray theory. The udkm1Dsim  toolbox is highly modular and allows for introducing user-defined results at any step in the simulation procedure.     

Direct amperometric determination of l-ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) at octacyanomolybdate-doped-poly(4-vinylpyridine) modified electrode in fruit juice and pharmaceuticals

The glassy carbon electrode (GCE) modified with Mo(CN)₈⁴⁻-incorporated-poly(4-vinylpyridine) (PVP/Mo(CN)₈⁴⁻), which has been recently shown to possess several attractive attributes as an efficient electrocatalytic electrode for l-ascorbic acid oxidation and its estimation, is used for l-ascorbic acid estimation directly in orange fruit juice and Celin tablet in a 0.1 M H₂SO₄ acid solution without any special treatment. Constant potential amperometry at 570 mV (saturated calomel electrode, SCE) in stirred solutions is used for this purpose. A good correlation is attained with the official titrametric method. To understand the possible electrocatalytic reaction mechanism for the electro-oxidation of l-ascorbic acid, calibration graphs over the range 1 × 10⁻⁵ to 1 × 10⁻² mol dm⁻³ l-ascorbic acid are compared for the three electrodes, ca. PVP/Mo(CN)₈⁴⁻, undoped PVP, and GCE; the curvature at high ascorbic acid concentration for the PVP/Mo(CN)₈⁴⁻ electrode is explained in terms of Michaelis–Menten (MM) saturation kinetics. The apparent MM constant (K_M), the maximum catalytic current (i_M), the complex decomposition rate constant (k_c), and the heterogeneous modified electrode rate constant (k^′_ME) are calculated from three different approaches. A reasonably high value of ≈1 × 10⁻² cm s⁻¹ is obtained for k^′_ME, indicating efficient l-ascorbic acid mediation at the PVP/Mo(CN)₈⁴⁻ electrode, thus accounting for quite a high sensitivity of this modified film electrode compared to several other modified electrodes.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">D</Emphasis>-decomposition technique state-of-the-art

It is a survey of recent extensions and new applications for the classical D-decomposition technique. We investigate the structure of the parameter space decomposition into root invariant regions for single-input single-output systems linear depending on the parameters. The D-decomposition for uncertain polynomials is considered as well as the problem of describing all stabilizing controllers of the certain structure (for instance, PID-controllers) that satisfy given H _∞-criterion. It is shown that the D-decomposition technique can be naturally linked with M-Δ framework (a general scheme for analysis of uncertain systems) and it is applicable for describing feasible sets for linear matrix inequalities. The problem of robust synthesis for linear systems can be also treated via D-decomposition technique.     

ML-KNN: A lazy learning approach to multi-label learning

Multi-label learning originated from the investigation of text categorization problem, where each document may belong to several predefined topics simultaneously. In multi-label learning, the training set is composed of instances each associated with a set of labels, and the task is to predict the label sets of unseen instances through analyzing training instances with known label sets. In this paper, a multi-label lazy learning approach named ML-KNN is presented, which is derived from the traditional K-nearest neighbor (KNN) algorithm. In detail, for each unseen instance, its K nearest neighbors in the training set are firstly identified. After that, based on statistical information gained from the label sets of these neighboring instances, i.e. the number of neighboring instances belonging to each possible class, maximum a posteriori (MAP) principle is utilized to determine the label set for the unseen instance. Experiments on three different real-world multi-label learning problems, i.e. Yeast gene functional analysis, natural scene classification and automatic web page categorization, show that ML-KNN achieves superior performance to some well-established multi-label learning algorithms.