Transition Systems Research Articles

Two Journalisms? Linear and Curvilinear Relationships Between Journalists’ Role Ideals and Degree of Democracy

ABSTRACT If there are authoritarian, transitional, and democratic political and media systems, are there associated authoritarian, transitional, and democratic role profiles for journalists? The relation between countries’ degree of democracy and the importance of journalistic role conceptions among journalists in a country is analyzed based on the World Journalism Study (Wave 2). I find that journalists in democratic political systems generally subscribe to fewer role conceptions than journalists in authoritarian political systems; Journalism-for-Democracy is more defined by what it is not (i.e., journalists reject the typical role conceptions of Journalism-for-Authoritarianism and Journalism-in-Transition) than by what it is. Journalism in transitional political systems (i.e., hybrid regimes and deficient democracies) is characterized by a specific set of role conceptions that are linked to political activism, which journalists in full democracies tend to reject. The study reassesses which role conceptions might be typical for which kind of political systems leading to revised hypotheses regarding the link between democracy and journalistic role conceptions.

PSE prospective: Paradigm transition towards Complex Thought in a global world under pressure

Many people confront and acknowledge irreversible anthropogenic changes as many global world limits are exceeded. As contributors, process system engineering research activities must undergo a transition within a novel paradigm more fit for addressing the general complexity of all impacted systems. This paper explores three shifts, covering methodological, epistemological and metaphysical intertwined aspects. About methodologies, we discuss energy savings, process intensification and sustainable growth issues, and suggest simultaneously keeping systemic and multiscale approaches and dropping Cartesian reductionism for producing knowledge and engineering expertise that will enable attenuation and adaptation solutions to better address the current challenges. But for that, underlying epistemological and metaphysical aspects must also be revisited. A participative PSE process is proposed to investigate systems in transition, in the spirit of the complex thought paradigm and constructivism, and to head towards not only sustainable but also desirable solutions for people.

Finite-time controllability and stabilization of probabilistic logical systems with state-dependent constraint via subset transition method

Constraints are very common for practical control systems. For logical systems, the existing technique of pre-feedback is an effective way of treating state-dependent constraints in control when the state is measurable. However, it is inapplicable for the case when measurement information is not available. In this situation, in order for the control input to not violate the state-dependent constraint, the control at each step must be selected from the common admissible controls of all possible states. Motivated by this observation, in this study, we propose a novel technique, termed the subset transition method, for finite-time controllability and stabilization of probabilistic logical dynamic control system (PLDCS) with a state-dependent control constraint. The main idea of this method is to construct an unconstrained deterministic logical control system over the power set of the state space, called the subset transition system (SubSTS), characterizing the transitional dynamics between subsets under common admissible controls. We prove that a control sequence is admissible with respect to all states in an initial subset if and only if it does not steer the SubSTS from the initial subset to the empty set. Based on this, necessary and sufficient conditions for set controllability and set stabilizability are obtained. Examples are presented to demonstrate the application of the obtained results.

Surface flow modulation by river discharges in a tropical micro-tidal estuary

The typical bidirectional pattern of subtidal flow observed at the mouths of estuaries is produced by inflows during high-tide (flood) and outflows during low-tide (ebb) periods. This flow pattern can be modulated in the presence of a strong river discharge, as observed for the Alvarado Estuary (western Gulf of Mexico) during the rainy season. Herein, six transect repetitions were obtained using a towed Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) at an average speed of approximately 2 m/s during a diurnal tidal cycle from September 20 to 21, 2009. The water column during this period was strongly stratified at the mouth of the estuary due to the amount of discharge from the Papaloapan River. Furthermore, the temperatures within the estuary were directly related to the distance from the Papaloapan River. Based on salinity data obtained at four locations along the estuary, the Alvarado Estuary could be considered for the first time as a transitional system from oligohaline to mesohaline (salinities between 5 and 18). The currents and backscatter intensities of the ADCP revealed concentrated areas of suspended particles in the deepest area of the estuary during flood tide periods. During ebb tide periods, estuarine water primarily exited through its mouth (∼90%), followed by the artificial channel (∼10%) located in the northernmost area of the estuary. The residence time during this season was 3.99 days. Finally, the typical estuarine flow pattern observed during flood and ebb tide periods was only depicted near the bottom of the mouth of the estuary. However, the near-surface flow was always toward the ocean (outflow), regardless of the tidal stage.

A Transitivity Approach to Angela Carter’s Feminist Revision of “Snow White”

Angela Carter rewrites Grimm’s fairy tale “Snow White” from the feminist perspective and creates her short story “The Snow Child”. Carter keeps the indispensable element, namely the magic mirror, but renders it invisible. Through it, Carter secretly reveals the mirror images between the Countess and the snow child, providing new insight into the Countess’s motivation to kill the child. An analysis of the transitivity system in the short story reveals that Carter deepens the theme from ostensible “female jealousy” to “oppressed female seeking liberation” in an attempt to encourage target readers (adult women) to challenge patriarchal forces and seek liberation. It meets the propaganda of the second feminist movement to pursue women’s freedom and sexual initiative. An in-depth exploration of the feminist ideology in this rewritten work can not only supplement the one-sided interpretation of “The Snow Child” by previous critics, but also reveal Carter’s unremitting efforts to make the classic fairy tale get rid of the label of “a carrier of the toxic patriarchal myths that are used to deceive women”, help it meet the trends of the contemporary era, and inject contemporary meaning into the classic fairy tale.

Ideology in Portraying the Israeli onslaught on Gaza in August 2022: A Transitivity Analysis of The Hindu and the Washington Post Reports

This critical discourse analysis (CDA) investigates how The Hindu and the Washington Post (WP) construct their online news in depicting the Israeli onslaught on Gaza in August 2022. Halliday’s transitivity system was adopted to explore the hidden ideologies and analyze the textual choice or words' features in the clauses of thirteen (13) news articles from The Hindu and nine (9) from WP. The study's findings indicate that the most dominant processes in both news media were the verbal and material processes. Within the verbal process, it was divided into three sides: Palestinian, Israel and neutral. The findings reveal that both media have common strategies to represent the Israeli and neutral verbal process, while the selected media share similarities and differences in representing the Palestinian verbal process. The findings through the material process suggest that both media show Israel as an actor more than as a goal. They tend to use processes ‘verbs’ that are associated with extreme violence and less violence with Israel, whereas Palestinian are associated with less violence process, but the process is supported with adjectives, adverbs and numbers to place it in extreme violence. The analysis is then followed by the revealed methods and techniques used by the selected media. Overall, both news media have hidden ideologies to construct their news articles. Based on these empirical evidences, (CDA) appears to play an essential part in understanding the language that is employed in media discourses.

Urban-Rural Cooperation for an Economy with 100% Renewable Energy and Climate Protection towards 2030 - the Region Berlin-Brandenburg

The German states of Berlin and Brandenburg are committed to the Paris Agreement with the goal of keeping global warming safely below 2 degrees to protect the Earth system from uncontrollable warming. This claim implies targeting 1.5 degrees to keep a reasonable chance of realisation. Renewable energies are the only sources that can be considered to accomplish this task. We use a linear cost minimization model for the Berlin-Brandenburg region to show how a 100% renewable energy target is possible without relying on contributions from other regions. We find that a 100% renewable energy system based predominantly on photovoltaics on buildings and on green hydrogen production, and a transition essentially to electricity for all purposes, is feasible in time and at a reasonable cost below that of fossil-nuclear energy. Hydrogen storage technology appears as one of the key cost determinants, while a sensible integration of German and European transition systems potentially limits costs to the lowest levels ever realized in real terms.

Transitivity processes in the 2021 Commencement Speech of DepEd Sec. Leonor M. Briones

Grounded on Halliday's Systemic-Functional Grammar, this study explores the transitivity system in the 2021 Commencement Speech of DepEd Sec. Leonor Briones. It specifically aims to identify the transitivity processes and the dominant process found in the Commencement speech and to analyze the linguistic functions in this transitivity system. Employing an explanatory mixed-method design, the results shows that material, mental, relational, and existential processes are present in the Commencement Speech. Among the four identified transitivity process, the dominant is the material process (65%). Moreover, it is revealed that material processes evident in the Commencement Speech display the speaker’s intention to state facts about achievements in the past and the present in response to the Covid-19 crisis that beset the Philippines, to inspire Filipino learners and teachers amidst the challenges of the pandemic, and to acknowledge the critical issue Filipino learners have been facing.

Testing, Validation, and Verification of Robotic and Autonomous Systems: A Systematic Review

We perform a systematic literature review on testing, validation, and verification of robotic and autonomous systems (RAS). The scope of this review covers peer-reviewed research papers proposing, improving, or evaluating testing techniques, processes, or tools that address the system-level qualities of RAS. Our survey is performed based on a rigorous methodology structured in three phases. First, we made use of a set of 26 seed papers (selected by domain experts) and the SERP-TEST taxonomy to design our search query and (domain-specific) taxonomy. Second, we conducted a search in three academic search engines and applied our inclusion and exclusion criteria to the results. Respectively, we made use of related work and domain specialists (50 academics and 15 industry experts) to validate and refine the search query. As a result, we encountered 10,735 studies, out of which 195 were included, reviewed, and coded. Our objective is to answer four research questions, pertaining to (1) the type of models, (2) measures for system performance and testing adequacy, (3) tools and their availability, and (4) evidence of applicability, particularly in industrial contexts. We analyse the results of our coding to identify strengths and gaps in the domain and present recommendations to researchers and practitioners. Our findings show that variants of temporal logics are most widely used for modelling requirements and properties, while variants of state-machines and transition systems are used widely for modelling system behaviour. Other common models concern epistemic logics for specifying requirements and belief-desire-intention models for specifying system behaviour. Apart from time and epistemics, other aspects captured in models concern probabilities (e.g., for modelling uncertainty) and continuous trajectories (e.g., for modelling vehicle dynamics and kinematics). Many papers lack any rigorous measure of efficiency, effectiveness, or adequacy for their proposed techniques, processes, or tools. Among those that provide a measure of efficiency, effectiveness, or adequacy, the majority use domain-agnostic generic measures such as number of failures, size of state-space, or verification time were most used. There is a trend in addressing the research gap in this respect by developing domain-specific notions of performance and adequacy. Defining widely accepted rigorous measures of performance and adequacy for each domain is an identified research gap. In terms of tools, the most widely used tools are well-established model-checkers such as Prism and Uppaal, as well as simulation tools such as Gazebo; Matlab/Simulink is another widely used toolset in this domain. Overall, there is very limited evidence of industrial applicability in the papers published in this domain. There is even a gap considering consolidated benchmarks for various types of autonomous systems.

Behavioural equivalences for continuous-time Markov processes

AbstractBisimulation is a concept that captures behavioural equivalence of states in a variety of types of transition systems. It has been widely studied in a discrete-time setting. The core of this work is to generalise the discrete-time picture to continuous time by providing a notion of behavioural equivalence for continuous-time Markov processes. In Chen et al. [(2019). Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science347 45–63.], we proposed two equivalent definitions of bisimulation for continuous-time stochastic processes where the evolution is a flow through time: the first one as an equivalence relation and the second one as a cospan of morphisms. In Chen et al. [(2020). Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science.], we developed the theory further: we introduced different concepts that correspond to different behavioural equivalences and compared them to bisimulation. In particular, we studied the relation between bisimulation and symmetry groups of the dynamics. We also provided a game interpretation for two of the behavioural equivalences. The present work unifies the cited conference presentations and gives detailed proofs.

Asynchronous control of 2-D Markov jump systems subject to general probabilities information

This paper addresses the asynchronous control of 2-D Markov jump systems with general probabilities information based on the hidden Markov model, in which the partial information phenomena on transition probabilities and system mode are considered simultaneously. A hidden Markov model with general probabilities is utilized to describe partial information phenomena. By using the Lyapunov function approach, two H∞ performance analysis criteria for the 2-D Markov jump systems with partial information on both transition probabilities and system mode are established, and the hidden Markov model-based controller design strategy is presented. The application of obtained theoretical results is illustrated via the Darboux equation with Markov jump parameters.

Using Transition Systems to Formalize Ideas from Vedānta

Abstract Vedānta is one of the oldest philosophical systems. While there are many detailed commentaries on Vedānta, there are very few mathematical descriptions of the different concepts developed there. This article shows how ideas from theoretical computer science can be used to explain Vedānta. The standard ideas of transition systems and modal logic are used to develop a formal description for the different ideas in Vedānta. The generality of the formalism is illustrated via a number of examples including saṃsāra, Patañjali’s Yogasūtras, karma, the three avasthās from the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad and the key difference between advaita and dvaita in relation to mokṣa.

Stable accretion and episodic outflows in the young transition disk system GM Aurigae

Context. Young stellar systems actively accrete from their circumstellar disk and simultaneously launch outflows. The physical link between accretion and ejection processes remains to be fully understood. Aims. We investigate the structure and dynamics of magnetospheric accretion and associated outflows on a scale smaller than 0.1 au around the young transitional disk system GM Aur. Methods. We devised a coordinated observing campaign to monitor the variability of the system on timescales ranging from days to months, including partly simultaneous high-resolution optical and near-infrared spectroscopy, multiwavelength photometry, and low-resolution near-infrared spectroscopy, over a total duration of six months, covering 30 rotational cycles. We analyzed the photometric and line profile variability to characterize the accretion and ejection processes. Results. The optical and near-infrared light curves indicate that the luminosity of the system is modulated by surface spots at the stellar rotation period of 6.04 ± 0.15 days. Part of the Balmer, Paschen, and Brackett hydrogen line profiles as well as the HeI 5876 Å and HeI 10830 Å line profiles are modulated on the same period. The Paβ line flux correlates with the photometric excess in the u′ band, which suggests that most of the line emission originates from the accretion process. High-velocity redshifted absorptions reaching below the continuum periodically appear in the near-infrared line profiles at the rotational phase in which the veiling and line fluxes are the largest. These are signatures of a stable accretion funnel flow and associated accretion shock at the stellar surface. This large-scale magnetospheric accretion structure appears fairly stable over at least 15 and possibly up to 30 rotational periods. In contrast, outflow signatures randomly appear as blueshifted absorption components in the Balmer and HeI 10830 Å line profiles. They are not rotationally modulated and disappear on a timescale of a few days. The coexistence of a stable, large-scale accretion pattern and episodic outflows supports magnetospheric ejections as the main process occurring at the star-disk interface. Conclusions. Long-term monitoring of the variability of the GM Aur transitional disk system provides clues to the accretion and ejection structure and dynamics close to the star. Stable magnetospheric accretion and episodic outflows appear to be physically linked on a scale of a few stellar radii in this system.

Paraconsistent Transition Systems

Often in Software Engineering, a modeling formalism has to support scenarios of inconsistency in which several requirements either reinforce or contradict each other. Paraconsistent transition systems are proposed in this paper as one such formalism: states evolve through two accessibility relations capturing weighted evidence of a transition or its absence, respectively. Their weights come from a specific residuated lattice. A category of these systems, and the corresponding algebra, is defined as providing a formal setting to model different application scenarios. One of them, dealing with the effect of quantum decoherence in quantum programs, is used for illustration purposes.

Span(Graph): a canonical feedback algebra of open transition systems

Span(Graph): a canonical feedback algebra of open transition systems

Opportunities for the materials research community to support the development of the H2 economy

The goal of decarbonizing global energy systems by 2050 is a challenge of unprecedented scope and ambition. Hydrogen has been identified as an important enabler for this effort, but its precise role in the energy transition and future energy system remains unclear. The MRS Focus on Sustainability subcommittee sponsored a panel discussion on the roles of and materials needs associated with hydrogen in the energy transition. This commentary summarizes key elements from the panel discussion and addresses how the materials research community can engage more deeply with the H2 energy transition. The topics include inventing new materials with improved properties for advanced technologies, but also supporting the growth of a robust manufacturing base, improving materials corrosion mitigation, helping to de-risk supply chains, and training qualified workers across the industrial ecosystem to reinforce a culture of safety and support the evolution of commercial processes and business models.Graphical abstract

Conformance Checking and Pushdown Reactive Systems

Due to their asynchronous interactions, testing reactive systems is a laborious activity present in any software development project.
 In this setting, the finite memory formalism of Labeled Transition Systems has been used to generate test suites that can be applied to check ioco conformance of implementations to a given specification.
 In this work we turn to a more complex scenario where a stronger formalism is considered, the Visibly Pushdown Labeled Transition System (VPTS), which allows access to a potentially infinite pushdown memory.
 We study an extension of the ioco conformance relation to VPTS models and develop polynomial time algorithms to verify conformance for VPTS models in a white-box testing scenario.

A Narrative Structure Analysis of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones

This article analyses how rape narratives provide insights into the conceptualization of rape, trauma, abuse, and recovery of rape victims. Using William Labov’s theoretical model of narrative structure analysis and Michael Halliday’s transitivity system, the article examines Alice Sebold’s rape narrative, The Lovely Bones (henceforth TLB). The analysis shows that the narrative structure of rape narratives helps understand deeper meanings and underpinned concepts of rape. Such meanings and concepts reveal the real horrors of rape, the gravity of the pain and suffering of rape victims, and the ways of their eventual recovery. Despite its limitations to only TLB, the article offers potential alternative approaches to examine rape narratives to uncover the deeper meanings and suggests new concepts of rape and sexual violence affecting the perspectives to be taken while dealing with rape in general and rape victims being women and children in particular.

Coreference Resolution through a seq2seq Transition-Based System

AbstractMost recent coreference resolution systems use search algorithms over possible spans to identify mentions and resolve coreference. We instead present a coreference resolution system that uses a text-to-text (seq2seq) paradigm to predict mentions and links jointly. We implement the coreference system as a transition system and use multilingual T5 as an underlying language model. We obtain state-of-the-art accuracy on the CoNLL-2012 datasets with 83.3 F1-score for English (a 2.3 higher F1-score than previous work [Dobrovolskii, 2021]) using only CoNLL data for training, 68.5 F1-score for Arabic (+4.1 higher than previous work), and 74.3 F1-score for Chinese (+5.3). In addition we use the SemEval-2010 data sets for experiments in the zero-shot setting, a few-shot setting, and supervised setting using all available training data. We obtain substantially higher zero-shot F1-scores for 3 out of 4 languages than previous approaches and significantly exceed previous supervised state-of-the-art results for all five tested languages. We provide the code and models as open source.1

Using a process algebra interface for verification and validation of UML statecharts

UML diagrams are the conventional methods for visual modeling systems. Among them, the Statechart diagrams are used to show the runtime behavior of a system, but the correctness of such diagrams is the primary concern of the designers because of concurrency issues like livelock, inaccessible states, and non-deterministic states. Process algebra methods have the capabilities that are suitable for verification and validation of Statecharts. To this end, in this paper, process algebra language LOTOS (Language Of Temporal Ordering Specification) is used as the target language, and a method is presented to map UML Statecharts to the LOTOS processes, called USLP. Then the correctness of the proposed mappings is proved by demonstrating the isomorphism relation between the Labeled Transition System (LTS) of a Statechart and the LTS of its transformed LOTOS specification. Next, tools CADP (Construction and Analysis of Distributed Processes) is used for verification and validation of the mapped LOTOS models, and the CSP process algebra and its tools, FDR are used to verify the properties could not be verified by the LOTOS and its toolset. The experimental results show our approach can: (1) verify some properties (the issues) that are not verified by other approaches and (2) reduce the space that should be searched to verify the properties.