8135119
Tractable Reasoning with Incomplete First-Order Knowledge in Dynamic Systems with Context-Dependent Actions
A basic reasoning problem in dynamic systems is the projection problem: determine if a formula holds after a sequence of actions has been performed. In this paper, we propose a tractable solution to the projection problem in the presence of incomplete first-order knowledge and contextdependent actions. Our solution is based on a type of progression, that is, we progress the initial knowledge base (KB) wrt the action sequence and answer the query against the resulting KB. The form of reasoning we propose is always logically sound and is also logically complete when the query is in a certain normal form and the agent has complete knowledge about the context of any context-dependent actions.
16346812
A hoare-style proof system for robot programs
Golog is a situation calculus-based logic programming language for high-level robotic control, This paper explores Hoare's axiomatic approach to program verification in the Golog context. We present a novel Hoare-style proof system for partial correctness of Golog programs. We prove total soundness of the proof system, and relative completeness of a subsystem of it for procedureless Golog programs. Examples are given to illustrate the use of the proof system.
117877852
A Tractability Result for Reasoning with Incomplete First-Order Knowledge Bases
In previous work, Levesque proposed an extension to classical databases that would allow for a certain form of incomplete first-order knowledge. Since this extension was sufficient to make full logical deduction undecidable, he also proposed an alternative reasoning scheme with desirable logical properties. He also claimed (without proof) that this reasoning could be implemented efficiently using database techniques such as projections and joins. In this paper, we substantiate this claim and show how to adapt a bottom-up database query evaluation algorithm for this purpose, thus obtaining a tractability result comparable to those that exist for databases.
15475945
Performance prediction of component-based applications
One of the major problems in building large-scale enterprise systems is anticipating the performance of the eventual solution before it has been built. The fundamental software engineering problem becomes more difficult when the systems are built on component technology. This paper investigates the feasibility of providing a practical solution to this problem. An empirical approach is proposed to determine the performance characteristics of component-based applications by benchmarking and profiling. Based on observation, a model is constructed to act as a performance predictor for a class of applications based on the specific component technology. The performance model derived from empirical measures is necessary to make the problem tractable and the results relevant. A case study applies the performance model to an application prototype implemented by two component infrastructures: CORBA and J2EE.
2600635
A systematic incrementalization technique and its application to hardware design

Abstract.A systematic transformation method based on incrementalization and value caching generalizes a broad family of program optimizations. It yields significant performance improvements in many program classes, including iterative schemes that characterize hardware specifications. CACHET is an interactive incrementalization tool. Although incrementalization is highly structured and automatable, better results are obtained through interaction, where the main task is to guide term rewriting based on data-specific identities. Incrementalization specialized to iteration corresponds to strength reduction, a familiar program improvement technique. This correspondence is illustrated by the derivation of a hardware-efficient nonrestoring square-root algorithm, which has also served as an example of theorem prover-based implementation verification.
37420469
Getting most out of evolutionary approaches
Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) have been widely used in evolvable hardware. The very term, evolvable hardware, reflects the importance and omnitude of EAs in this field. However, EAs have primarily been used as an optimisation or search tool, which can explore a large and complex space. While success has been demonstrated by EAs in exploring unconventional designs that are hard to reach by human experts, it is interesting to ask the question whether we have fully used all the potentialities of EAs. We argue in this paper that there is rich information in a population which can and should be exploited. The classical approach of evolving the best individual in a population may not be the best one. A truly population-based approach that emphasizes population rather than the best individual can often bring in several important benefits to evolvable hardware, including efficiency, accuracy, adaptiveness, and fault-tolerance.
8905363
Improving Query Response Delivery Quality in Peer-to-Peer Systems
Unstructured peer-to-peer (P2P) system is the prevalent model in today's P2P systems. In such systems, a response is sent along the same path that carried the incoming query message. To guarantee the anonymity of the requestor, no requestor information is included in the response message, and each node in the query's incoming path only knows its direct neighbors who sent the query request to it. This mechanism introduces response loss when any one node or connection in the path fails, which is a common occurrence in the P2P system due to its dynamic feature. In this paper, we address the response loss problem and show that peers' oscillation can cause up to a 35 percent response loss in an unstructured P2P system. We also present three techniques to alleviate this problem: the redundant response delivery (RRD) scheme as a proactive approach, the adaptive response delivery (ARD) scheme as a reactive approach, and the extended adaptive response delivery scheme to render ARD to function in an unstructured P2P system with limited or no flooding-based search mechanism. We have evaluated our techniques in a large-scale network simulation. With limited traffic overhead, all three techniques reduce response loss rate by more than 65 percent and are fully distributed. We have designed our techniques to be simple to develop and implement in existing P2P systems
34486970
Simulation of miscible binary mixtures based on lattice Boltzmann method
Miscible fluid mixtures, like pouring honey into water, Coca Cola into strong wine, are common phenomena in our daily life. While two miscible fluids are mixed together, their appearances in terms of colors and shapes will change due to their mixing interaction. The interaction between the mixture components could be regarded as a combination of the diffusing process and demixing process. If the former dominates the interaction, it is miscible; otherwise, it is immiscible. The complex microscopic interplay between the mixture components makes the simulation highly challenging. So far, there have been some dedicated research in computer graphics dealing with immiscible mixtures, but few works have been done focusing on miscible mixtures. In this paper, for the first time, we introduce a two-fluid lattice Boltzmann method (LBM), called TFLBM, applied to miscible binary mixtures. Different from other similar methods, the viscous and diffusing properties of the fluid in our work are considered separately, so that the physical insight is exposed more clearly and rationally. In addition, the operation of LBM is mostly a linear local computation, and graphics processing unit (GPU) has been utilized to achieve real-time simulation. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.