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Use-cases are considered an integral part of most contemporary development processes since they describe a software system's expected behavior from the perspective of its prospective users. However, the presence of and traceability to use-cases is increasingly lost in later more code-centric development activities. Use-cases, being well-encapsulated at the level of requirements descriptions, eventually lead to crosscutting concerns in system design and source code. Tracing which parts of the system contribute to which use-cases is therefore hard and so limits understandability.
In this paper, we propose an approach to making use-cases first-class entities in both the programming language and the runtime environment. Having use-cases present in the code and the running system will allow developers, maintainers, and operators to easily associate their units of work with what matters to the users. We suggest the combination of use-cases, acceptance tests, and dynamic analysis to automatically associate source code with use-cases. We present UseCasePy, an implementation of our approach to use-case-centered development in Python, and its application to the Django Web framework.
CSOM/PL is a software product line (SPL) derived from applying multi-dimensional separation of concerns (MDSOC) techniques to the domain of high-level language virtual machine (VM) implementations. For CSOM/PL, we modularised CSOM, a Smalltalk VM implemented in C, using VMADL (virtual machine architecture description language). Several features of the original CSOM were encapsulated in VMADL modules and composed in various combinations. In an evaluation of our approach, we show that applying MDSOC and SPL principles to a domain as complex as that of VMs is not only feasible but beneficial, as it improves understandability, maintainability, and configurability of VM implementations without harming performance.
Virtual machine (VM) implementations are made of intricately intertwined subsystems, interacting largely through implicit dependencies. As the degree of crosscutting present in VMs is very high, VM implementations exhibit significant internal complexity. This study proposes an architecture approach for VMs that regards a VM as a composite of service modules coordinated through explicit bidirectional interfaces. Aspect-oriented programming techniques are used to establish these interfaces, to coordinate module interaction, and to declaratively express concrete VM architectures. A VM architecture description language is presented in a case study, illustrating the application of the proposed architectural principles.
The SDSS galaxy catalog is one of the best databases for galaxy distribution studies. The SDSS DR8 data is used to construct the galaxy cluster catalog. We construct the clusters from the calculated luminosity density field and identify denser regions. Around these peak regions we construct galaxy clusters. Another interesting question in cosmology is how observable galaxy structures are connected to underlying dark matter distribution. To study this we compare the SDSS DR7 galaxy group catalog with galaxy groups obtained from the semi-analytical Millennium N-Body simulation. Specifically, we compare the group richness, virial radius, maximum separation and velocity dispersion distributions and find a relatively good agreement between the mock catalog and observations. This strongly supports the idea, that the dark matter distribution and galaxies in the semi-analytical models and observations are very closely linked.
There are two common approaches to implement a virtual machine (VM) for a dynamic object-oriented language. On the one hand, it can be implemented in a C-like language for best performance and maximum control over the resulting executable. On the other hand, it can be implemented in a language such as Java that allows for higher-level abstractions. These abstractions, such as proper object-oriented modularization, automatic memory management, or interfaces, are missing in C-like languages but they can simplify the implementation of prevalent but complex concepts in VMs, such as garbage collectors (GCs) or just-in-time compilers (JITs). Yet, the implementation of a dynamic object-oriented language in Java eventually results in two VMs on top of each other (double stack), which impedes performance. For statically typed languages, the Maxine VM solves this problem; it is written in Java but can be executed without a Java virtual machine (JVM). However, it is currently not possible to execute dynamic object-oriented languages in Maxine. This work presents an approach to bringing object models and execution models of dynamic object-oriented languages to the Maxine VM and the application of this approach to Squeak/Smalltalk. The representation of objects in and the execution of dynamic object-oriented languages pose certain challenges to the Maxine VM that lacks certain variation points necessary to enable an effortless and straightforward implementation of dynamic object-oriented languages' execution models. The implementation of Squeak/Smalltalk in Maxine as a feasibility study is to unveil such missing variation points.
The flat spectrum radio quasar 3C 279 is known to exhibit pronounced variability in the high-energy (100MeV < E < 100 GeV) gamma-ray band, which is continuously monitored with Fermi-LAT. During two periods of high activity in April 2014 and June 2015 target-of-opportunity observations were undertaken with the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) in the very-high-energy (VHE, E > 100 GeV) gamma-ray domain. While the observation in 2014 provides an upper limit, the observation in 2015 results in a signal with 8 : 7 sigma significance above an energy threshold of 66 GeV. No VHE variability was detected during the 2015 observations. The VHE photon spectrum is soft and described by a power-law index of 4.2 +/- 0.3. The H.E.S.S. data along with a detailed and contemporaneous multiwavelength data set provide constraints on the physical parameters of the emission region. The minimum distance of the emission region from the central black hole was estimated using two plausible geometries of the broad-line region and three potential intrinsic spectra. The emission region is confidently placed at r greater than or similar to 1 : 7 X 1017 cm from the black hole, that is beyond the assumed distance of the broad-line region. Time-dependent leptonic and lepto-hadronic one-zone models were used to describe the evolution of the 2015 flare. Neither model can fully reproduce the observations, despite testing various parameter sets. Furthermore, the H.E.S.S. data were used to derive constraints on Lorentz invariance violation given the large redshift of 3C 279.
Measurement of the EBL spectral energy distribution using the VHE gamma-ray spectra of HESS blazars
(2017)
Very high-energy gamma rays (VHE, E greater than or similar to 100 GeV) propagating over cosmological distances can interact with the low-energy photons of the extragalactic background light (EBL) and produce electron-positron pairs. The transparency of the Universe to VHE gamma rays is then directly related to the spectral energy distribution (SED) of the EBL. The observation of features in the VHE energy spectra of extragalactic sources allows the EBL to be measured, which otherwise is very difficult. An EBL model-independent measurement of the EBL SED with the H.E.S.S. array of Cherenkov telescopes is presented. It was obtained by extracting the EBL absorption signal from the reanalysis of high-quality spectra of blazars. From H.E.S.S. data alone the EBL signature is detected at a significance of 9.5 sigma, and the intensity of the EBL obtained in different spectral bands is presented together with the associated gamma-ray horizon.
We search for high-energy gamma-ray emission from the binary neutron star merger GW170817 with the H.E.S.S. Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescopes. The observations presented here have been obtained starting only 5.3 hr after GW170817. The H.E.S.S. target selection identified regions of high probability to find a counterpart of the gravitational-wave event. The first of these regions contained the counterpart SSS17a that has been identified in the optical range several hours after our observations. We can therefore present the first data obtained by a ground-based pointing instrument on this object. A subsequent monitoring campaign with the H.E.S.S. telescopes extended over several days, covering timescales from 0.22 to 5.2 days and energy ranges between 270 GeV to 8.55 TeV. No significant gamma-ray emission has been found. The derived upper limits on the very-high-energy gamma-ray flux for the first time constrain non-thermal, high-energy emission following the merger of a confirmed binary neutron star system.
Dwarf spheroidal galaxies are among the most promising targets for detecting signals of Dark Matter (DM) annihilations. The H.E.S.S. experiment has observed five of these systems for a total of about 130 hours. The data are re-analyzed here, and, in the absence of any detected signals, are interpreted in terms of limits on the DM annihilation cross section. Two scenarios are considered: i) DM annihilation into mono-energetic gamma-rays and ii) DM in the form of pure WIMP multiplets that, annihilating into all electroweak bosons, produce a distinctive gamma-ray spectral shape with a high-energy peak at the DM mass and a lower-energy continuum. For case i), upper limits at 95% confidence level of about <sigma upsilon > less than or similar to 3 x 10(-25) cm(3) s(-1) are obtained in the mass range of 400 GeV to 1TeV. For case ii), the full spectral shape of the models is used and several excluded regions are identified, but the thermal masses of the candidates are not robustly ruled out.
Context. Runaway stars form bow shocks by ploughing through the interstellar medium at supersonic speeds and are promising sources of non-thermal emission of photons. One of these objects has been found to emit non-thermal radiation in the radio band. This triggered the development of theoretical models predicting non-thermal photons from radio up to very-high-energy (VHE, E >= 0.1 TeV) gamma rays. Subsequently, one bow shock was also detected in X-ray observations. However, the data did not allow discrimination between a hot thermal and a non-thermal origin. Further observations of different candidates at X-ray energies showed no evidence for emission at the position of the bow shocks either. A systematic search in the Fermi-LAT energy regime resulted in flux upper limits for 27 candidates listed in the E-BOSS catalogue. Aims. Here we perform the first systematic search for VHE gamma-ray emission from bow shocks of runaway stars. Methods. Using all available archival H.E.S.S. data we search for very-high-energy gamma-ray emission at the positions of bow shock candidates listed in the second E-BOSS catalogue release. Out of the 73 bow shock candidates in this catalogue, 32 have been observed with H.E.S.S. Results. None of the observed 32 bow shock candidates in this population study show significant emission in the H.E.S.S. energy range. Therefore, flux upper limits are calculated in five energy bins and the fraction of the kinetic wind power that is converted into VHE gamma rays is constrained. Conclusions. Emission from stellar bow shocks is not detected in the energy range between 0.14 and 18 TeV. The resulting upper limits constrain the level of VHE gamma-ray emission from these objects down to 0.1-1% of the kinetic wind energy.