A bigraphical model for specifying cloud-based elastic systems and their behaviour

The few recent years have witnessed the appearance of a new kind of self-adaptive systems called cloud based-elastic systems. These systems are particularly appealing for their ability to maintain a decent quality of service and reduce a system’s operating cost at the same time. They achieve this by dynamically adjusting resources allocation in terms of elasticity. Meanwhile, complexity of structural and behavioural aspects related to cloud-based elastic systems increase the difficulty of designing and developing such systems. In this paper, we address this challenge by proposing a formal approach based on bigraphical reactive systems for modelling both structural and behavioural aspects of cloud-based elastic systems. In particular, we represent their behaviour in terms of client/application interactions and elasticity methods at different levels using bigraphical reaction rules. The feasibility of the proposed approach is illustrated through a motivating example running on the top of an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) infrastructure.     

Deep Semantic Structure of Natural Language

This paper presents the result of research of deep structure of natural language. The main result attained is the existence of a deterministic mathematical model that relates phonetics to associated mental images starting from the simplest linguistic units in agreement with the human response to different acoustic stimuli. Moreover, there exists two level hierarchy for natural language understanding. The first level uncovers the conceptual meaning of linguistic units, and hence forming a corresponding mental image. At the second level the operational meaning is found to suit, context, pragmatics, and world knowledge. This agrees with our knowledge about human cognition. The resulting model is parallel, hierarchical but still concise to explain the speed of natural language understanding.     

Advanced Characterization of Precipitation and Microstructure Heterogeneity in X70 Steel

Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A - The spatial distribution of precipitates and microstructure heterogeneity in a vacuum induction melted X70 steel rolled at a pilot-scale facility were...     

Dynamic observations of the fracture phenomena in alpha/beta brass two-phase bicrystals

In situ dynamic observations of the deformation and fracture characteristics of alpha/beta brass two-phase bicrystals were made by the solid diffusion method. The results indicated clearly that the crack initiation site was at the interface. The crack propagation direction, in both the alpha and beta phases, was found to be orientation dependent. Complementary experiments on alpha and beta brass single crystals confirmed the theories and results obtained previously on ductile single crystals.On leave from the Mechanical Engineering Department, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt.     

Effect of the percentage carbon equivalent on the nodule characteristics,density and modulus of elasticity of ductile cast iron

Successful melting and Mg treatment were conducted using a vortex unit which produced spheroidal graphite (SG) Fe ingots having a percentage carbon equivalent (%CE) ranging from 3.782 to 5.240. Microstructure examination revealed graphite nodules embedded in a white matrix (unetched condition). The variation of %CE proved to have a pronounced effect on the nodule characteristics. The nodule count showed a maximum value at %CE of 4.613. For metal-mould ingots it reached a value of 1584 nodules mm^–2, while for sand-mould ingots it reached a value of 970 nodules mm^–2. Nodule size was found to be inversely proportional to the nodule count for both sand- and metal-mould ingots. The nodularity of all ingots was, in general, higher than 95%. The density of SG Fe was found to decrease gradually (at %CE=3.782) from 7242 to 6969 kg m^–3. The modulus of elasticity (E) showed a boat-like curve having minimum values of 189 and 192 GPa for the sand and metal moulds, respectively.     

Microstructure and mechanical properties of modified and non-modified stir-cast Al-Si hypoeutectic alloys

The microstructure and mechanical properties of modified and non-modified stir-cast commercial aluminium alloys A-S7G03 and A-S4G have been investigated. Stir casting of these alloys resulted in spherical and/or rosette shape primary -phase, and the eutectic silicon was broken into miniature needle morphology. This stir-cast structure slightly improved the mechanical properties in comparison to those of conventionally cast alloys, however the fracture of the stir-cast alloys revealed intergranular brittle fracture. The addition of 0.02% strontium, in the form of Al-5 mass% Sr master alloy, during stir casting modified the eutectic silicon into a very fine spheroidal morphology, while the -phase particle showed the same morphology as the stir-cast alloys. This novel structure resulted in significant improvement of mechanical properties. The elongation of the modified stir-cast alloys was five times greater than that of the non-modified one. A transgranular mode of fracture was observed for the modified stircast alloys, moreover smooth ripple and dimple patterns were observed reflecting the high ductility of the modified stir-cast alloys.     

Enhanced structural and optical properties of ZnO nanopowder with tailored visible luminescence as a function of sodium hydroxide to zinc sulfate mass ratio

ZnO nanopowders of tailored particle sizes were synthesized using a simple wet chemical method, by controlling the mass ratio of the precursors. The physical properties were investigated as a function of OH^?/Zn²⁺ mass ratio (x). The structural properties of the synthesized nanoparticles (NPs) are studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD). XRD patterns show pure wurtzite structure. Microstructural parameters dependence on x ratio was studied based on Williamson-Hall model. We notice an increase in crystallite size (17–24?nm) and a decrease in strain values when the x ratio increases (0.5–1.4). The best crystallinity corresponds to the higher mass ratio. Indeed, for x?=?1.4 we obtain the largest crystallite size, the lowest strain and stacking faults. The TEM images support the XRD results. Raman spectra confirm the purity of the synthesized ZnO powder. Furthermore, the optical properties were examined by UV–vis and Photoluminescence as a function of precursor’s ratio. Absorption data show a band gap red-shift of the ZnO-NPs with increase in particle’s size. Moreover, we found that the ZnO-NPs luminescence in the visible range can be engineered by changes of x ratio. This constitutes an advantage for the use of ZnO-NPs in different wavelength areas in optoelectronic applications covering UV-Blue-Green domain for the LED design, sensors…     

Modeling and Analysis of Workflows Using Petri Nets

A workflow system, in its general form, is basically a heterogeneous and distributed information system where the tasks are performed using autonomous systems. Resources, such as databases, labor, etc. are typically required to process these tasks. Prerequisite to the execution of a task is a set of constraints that reflect the applicable business rules and user requirements.In this paper we present a Petri Net (PN) based framework that (1) facilitates specification of workflow applications, (2) serves as a powerful tool for modeling the system under study at a conceptual level, (3) allows for a smooth transition from the conceptual level to a testbed implementation and (4) enables the analysis, simulation and validation of the system under study before proceeding to implementation. Specifically, we consider three categories of task dependencies: control flow, value and external (temporal).We identify several structural properties of PN and demonstrate their use for conducting the following type of analyses: (1) identify inconsistent dependency specifications among tasks; (2) test for workflow safety, i.e. test whether the workflow terminates in an acceptable state; (3) for a given starting time, test whether it is feasible to execute a workflow with the specified temporal constraints. We also provide an implementation for conducting the above analyses.