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Although human skills are heavily involved in the Requirements Engineering process, in particular, in requirements elicitation, analysis and specification, still methodology and formalism play a determining role in providing clarity and enabling analysis. In this paper, we propose a method for deriving formal specifications, which are applicable to dependable software systems. First, we clarify what the method itself is. Computer science has a proliferation of languages and methods, but the difference between the two is not always clear. This is a conceptual contribution. Furthermore, we propose the idea of Layered Fault Tolerant Specification (LFTS). The principle consists in layering specifications in (at least) two different layers: one for normal behaviors and others (if more than one) for abnormal behaviors. Abnormal behaviors are described in terms of an Error Injector (EI), which represent a model of the expected erroneous interference coming from the environment. This structure has been inspired by the notion of an idealized Fault Tolerant component, but the combination of LFTS and EI using rely guarantee thinking to describe interference is our second contribution. The overall result is the definition of a method for the specification of systems that do not run in isolation but in the real, physical world. We propose an approach that is pragmatic to its target audience: techniques must scale and be usable by non-experts, if they are to make it into an industrial setting. This article is making tentative steps, but the recent trends in Software Engineering such as Microservices, smart and software-defined buildings, M2M micropayments and Devops are relevant fields continue the investigation concerning dependability and rely guarantee thinking.

The advent of laser scanning technologies has revolutionized forestry. Their use made it possible to switch from studying woodlands using manual measurements to computer analysis of stereo point images called point clouds.

Automatic calculation of some tree parameters (such as trunk diameter) using a point cloud requires the removal of foliage points. To perform this operation, a preliminary segmentation of the stereo image into the “foliage” and “trunk” classes is required. The solution to this problem often involves the use of machine learning methods.

One of the most popular classifiers used for segmentation of stereo images of trees is a random forest. This classifier is quite demanding on the amount of memory. At the same time, the size of the machine learning model can be critical if it needs to be sent by wire, which is required, for example, when performing distributed learning. In this paper, the goal is to find a classifier that would be less demanding in terms of memory, but at the same time would have comparable segmentation accuracy. The search is performed among classifiers such as logistic regression, naive Bayes classifier, and decision tree. In addition, a method for segmentation refinement performed by a decision tree using logistic regression is being investigated.

The experiments were conducted on data from the collection of the University of Heidelberg. The collection contains hand-marked stereo images of trees of various species, both coniferous and deciduous, typical of the forests of Central Europe.

It has been shown that classification using a decision tree, adjusted using logistic regression, is able to produce a result that is only slightly inferior to the result of a random forest in accuracy, while spending less time and RAM. The difference in balanced accuracy is no more than one percent on all the clouds considered, while the total size and inference time of the decision tree and logistic regression classifiers is an order of magnitude smaller than of the random forest classifier.

The article presents a technology for building clinical decision support systems (CDSS) based on service containers using Docker and a web interface that runs directly in the browser without installing specialized software on workstation of a clinician. A modular architecture is proposed in which each application module is packaged as an independent service container combining a lightweight web server, a user interface, and computational components for medical image processing. Communication between the browser and the server side is implemented via a persistent bidirectional WebSocket connection with binary message serialization (MessagePack), which provides low latency and efficient transfer of large data. For local storage of images and analysis of results, browser facilities (IndexedDB with the Dexie.js wrapper) are used to speed up repeated data access. Three-dimensional visualization and basic operations with DICOM data are implemented with Three.js and AMI.js: this toolchain supports the integration of interactive elements arising from the task context (annotations, landmarks, markers, 3D models) into volumetric medical images.

Server components and functional modules are assembled as a set of interacting containers managed by Docker. The paper discusses the choice of base images, approaches to minimizing containers down to runtime-only executables without external utilities, and the organization of multi-stage builds with a dedicated build container. It describes a hub service that launches application containers on user request, performs request proxying, manages sessions, and switches a container from shared to exclusive mode at the start of computations. Examples of application modules are provided (fractional flow reserve estimation, quantitative flow ratio computation, aortic valve closure modeling), along with the integration of a React-based interface with a three-dimensional scene, a versioning policy, automated reproducibility checks, and the deployment procedure on the target platform.

It is demonstrated that containerization ensures portability and reproducibility of the software environment, dependency isolation and scalability, while the browser-based interface provides accessibility, reduced infrastructure requirements, and interactive real-time visualization of medical data. Technical limitations are noted (dependence on versions of visualization libraries and data formats) together with practical mitigation measures.

It was carried out a theoretical analysis of the energy migration rate in the process of non-photochemical quenching of fluorescence pigment-protein complex that performed by means of orange carotenoid-protein in the phycobilisomes of cyanobacteria. It is shown that the observed rate of energy transfer can not be interpreted in the framework of inductive-resonant mechanism of energy migration (Förster’s theory). On the contrary, according to the calculations the implementation of the exciton mechanism is fully consistent with the experimentally observed high quenching rate. An essential feature of the implementation of the exciton mechanism is to comply with a number of structural and functional conditions that require fine-tuning of the molecular system in the interaction of donor and acceptor molecules both each other and with the local molecular environment.

High-purity hydrogen is required for clean energy and a variety of chemical technology processes. A considerable part of hydrogen is to be obtained by methane conversion. Different alloys, which may be wellsuited for use in gas-separation plants, were investigated by measuring specific hydrogen permeability. One had to estimate the parameters of diffusion and sorption to numerically model the different scenarios and experimental conditions of the material usage (including extreme ones), and identify the limiting factors. This paper presents a nonlinear model of hydrogen permeability in accordance with the specifics of the experiment, the numerical method for solving the boundary-value problem, and the results of parametric identification for the alloy V₈₅Ni₁₅.

Numerical investigation of mixing non-isothermal streams of sodium coolant in a T-branch is carried out in the FlowVision CFD software. This study is aimed at argumentation of applicability of different approaches to prediction of oscillating behavior of the flow in the mixing zone and simulation of temperature pulsations. The following approaches are considered: URANS (Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokers), LES (Large Eddy Simulation) and quasi-DNS (Direct Numerical Simulation). One of the main tasks of the work is detection of the advantages and drawbacks of the aforementioned approaches.

Numerical investigation of temperature pulsations, arising in the liquid and T-branch walls from the mixing of non-isothermal streams of sodium coolant was carried out within a mathematical model assuming that the flow is turbulent, the fluid density does not depend on pressure, and that heat exchange proceeds between the coolant and T-branch walls. Model LMS designed for modeling turbulent heat transfer was used in the calculations within URANS approach. The model allows calculation of the Prandtl number distribution over the computational domain.

Preliminary study was dedicated to estimation of the influence of computational grid on the development of oscillating flow and character of temperature pulsation within the aforementioned approaches. The study resulted in formulation of criteria for grid generation for each approach.

Then, calculations of three flow regimes have been carried out. The regimes differ by the ratios of the sodium mass flow rates and temperatures at the T-branch inlets. Each regime was calculated with use of the URANS, LES and quasi-DNS approaches.

At the final stage of the work analytical comparison of numerical and experimental data was performed. Advantages and drawbacks of each approach to simulation of mixing non-isothermal streams of sodium coolant in the T-branch are revealed and formulated.

It is shown that the URANS approach predicts the mean temperature distribution with a reasonable accuracy. It requires essentially less computational and time resources compared to the LES and DNS approaches. The drawback of this approach is that it does not reproduce pulsations of velocity, pressure and temperature.

The LES and DNS approaches also predict the mean temperature with a reasonable accuracy. They provide oscillating solutions. The obtained amplitudes of the temperature pulsations exceed the experimental ones. The spectral power densities in the check points inside the sodium flow agree well with the experimental data. However, the expenses of the computational and time resources essentially exceed those for the URANS approach in the performed numerical experiments: 350 times for LES and 1500 times for ·DNS.

In the last decade along with classical cytotoxic agents, antiangiogenic drugs have been actively used in cancer chemotherapy. They are not aimed at killing malignant cells, but at blocking the process of angiogenesis, i.e., the growth of new vessels in the tumor and its surrounding tissues. Agents that stimulate angiogenesis, in particular, vascular endothelial growth factor, are actively produced by tumor cells in the state of metabolic stress. It is believed that blocking of tumor neovascularization should lead to a shortage of nutrients flow to the tumor, and thus can stop, or at least significantly slow down its growth. Clinical practice on the use of first antiangiogenic drug bevacizumab has shown that in some cases such therapy does not influence the growth rate of the tumor, whereas for other types of malignant neoplasms antiangiogenic therapy has a high antitumor effect. However, it has been shown that along with successful slowing of tumor growth, therapy with bevacizumab can induce directed tumor progression to a more invasive, and therefore more lethal, type. These data require theoretical analysis and rationale for the evolutionary factors that lead to the observation of epithelial-mesenchymal transition. For this purpose we have developed a spatially distributed mathematical model of growth and antiangiogenic therapy of heterogeneous tumor consisting of two subpopulations of malignant cells. One of subpopulations possesses inherent characteristics of epithelial phenotype, i.e., low motility and high proliferation rate, the other one corresponds to mesenchymal phenotype having high motility and low proliferation rate. We have performed the investigation of competition between these subpopulations of heterogeneous tumor in the cases of tumor growth without therapy and under bevacizumab monotherapy. It is shown that constant use of antiangiogenic drug leads to an increase of the region in parameter space, where the dominance of mesenchymal phenotype takes place, i.e., within a certain range of parameters in the absence of therapy epithelial phenotype is dominant but during bevacizumab administration mesenchymal phenotype begins to dominate. This result provides a theoretical basis of the clinically observed directed tumor progression to more invasive type under antiangiogenic therapy.

The article shows the relevance of research work in the field of creating control systems for unmanned vehicles based on computer vision technologies. Computer vision tools are used to solve a large number of different tasks, including to determine the location of the car, detect obstacles, determine a suitable parking space. These tasks are resource intensive and have to be performed in real time. Therefore, it is important to develop effective models, methods and tools that ensure the achievement of the required time and accuracy for use in unmanned vehicle control systems. In this case, the choice of the image representation model is important. In this paper, we consider a model based on the wavelet transform, which makes it possible to form features characterizing the energy estimates of the image points and reflecting their significance from the point of view of the contribution to the overall image energy. To form a model of energy characteristics, a procedure is performed based on taking into account the dependencies between the wavelet coefficients of various levels and the application of heuristic adjustment factors for strengthening or weakening the influence of boundary and interior points. On the basis of the proposed model, it is possible to construct descriptions of images their characteristic features for isolating and analyzing, including for isolating contours, regions, and singular points. The effectiveness of the proposed approach to image analysis is due to the fact that the objects in question, such as road signs, road markings or car numbers that need to be detected and identified, are characterized by the relevant features. In addition, the use of wavelet transforms allows to perform the same basic operations to solve a set of tasks in onboard unmanned vehicle systems, including for tasks of primary processing, segmentation, description, recognition and compression of images. The such unified approach application will allow to reduce the time for performing all procedures and to reduce the requirements for computing resources of the on-board system of an unmanned vehicle.

The paper develops a new mathematical method of the joint signal and noise calculation at the Rice statistical distribution based on combing the maximum likelihood method and the method of moments. The calculation of the sough-for values of signal and noise is implemented by processing the sampled measurements of the analyzed Rician signal’s amplitude. The explicit equations’ system has been obtained for required signal and noise parameters and the results of its numerical solution are provided confirming the efficiency of the proposed technique. It has been shown that solving the two-parameter task by means of the proposed technique does not lead to the increase of the volume of demanded calculative resources if compared with solving the task in one-parameter approximation. An analytical solution of the task has been obtained for the particular case of small value of the signal-to-noise ratio. The paper presents the investigation of the dependence of the sought for parameters estimation accuracy and dispersion on the quantity of measurements in experimental sample. According to the results of numerical experiments, the dispersion values of the estimated sought-for signal and noise parameters calculated by means of the proposed technique change in inverse proportion to the quantity of measurements in a sample. There has been implemented a comparison of the accuracy of the soughtfor Rician parameters’ estimation by means of the proposed technique and by earlier developed version of the method of moments. The problem having been considered in the paper is meaningful for the purposes of Rician data processing, in particular, at the systems of magnetic-resonance visualization, in devices of ultrasonic visualization, at optical signals’ analysis in range-measuring systems, at radar signals’ analysis, as well as at solving many other scientific and applied tasks that are adequately described by the Rice statistical model.

The paper proposes a new mathematical model to study the interaction dynamics of the longitudinal wall of a narrow channel with its end seal. The end seal was considered as the edge wall on a spring, i.e. spring-mass system. These walls interaction occurs via a viscous liquid filling the narrow channel; thus required the formulation and solution of the hydroelasticity problem. However, this problem has not been previously studied. The problem consists of the Navier–Stokes equations, the continuity equation, the edge wall dynamics equation, and the corresponding boundary conditions. Two cases of fluid motion in a narrow channel with parallel walls were studied. In the first case, we assumed the liquid motion as the creeping one, and in the second case as the laminar, taking into account the motion inertia. The hydroelasticty problem solution made it possible to determine the distribution laws of velocities and pressure in the liquid layer, as well as the motion law of the edge wall. It is shown that during creeping flow, the liquid physical properties and the channel geometric dimensions completely determine the damping in the considered oscillatory system. Both the end wall velocity and the longitudinal wall velocity affect the damping properties of the liquid layer. If the fluid motion inertia forces were taken into account, their influence on the edge wall vibrations was revealed, which manifested itself in the form of two added masses in the equation of its motion. The added masses and damping coefficients of the liquid layer due to the joint consideration of the liquid layer inertia and its viscosity were determined. The frequency and phase responses of the edge wall were constructed for the regime of steady-state harmonic oscillations. The simulation showed that taking into account the fluid layer inertia and its damping properties leads to a shift in the resonant frequencies to the low-frequency region and an increase in the oscillation amplitudes of the edge wall.