SoK: Cryptographically Protected Database Search

Protected database search systems cryptographically isolate the roles of reading from, writing to, and administering the database. This separation limits unnecessary administrator access and protects data in the case of system breaches. Since protected search was introduced in 2000, the area has grown rapidly; systems are offered by academia, start-ups, and established companies. However, there is no best protected search system or set of techniques. Design of such systems is a balancing act between security, functionality, performance, and usability. This challenge is made more difficult by ongoing database specialization, as some users will want the functionality of SQL, NoSQL, or NewSQL databases. This database evolution will continue, and the protected search community should be able to quickly provide functionality consistent with newly invented databases. At the same time, the community must accurately and clearly characterize the tradeoffs between different approaches. To address these challenges, we provide the following contributions: 1) An identification of the important primitive operations across database paradigms. We find there are a small number of base operations that can be used and combined to support a large number of database paradigms. 2) An evaluation of the current state of protected search systems in implementing these base operations. This evaluation describes the main approaches and tradeoffs for each base operation. Furthermore, it puts protected search in the context of unprotected search, identifying key gaps in functionality. 3) An analysis of attacks against protected search for different base queries. 4) A roadmap and tools for transforming a protected search system into a protected database, including an open-source performance evaluation platform and initial user opinions of protected search.Comment: 20 pages, to appear to IEEE Security and Privac

Muppet: MapReduce-Style Processing of Fast Data

MapReduce has emerged as a popular method to process big data. In the past few years, however, not just big data, but fast data has also exploded in volume and availability. Examples of such data include sensor data streams, the Twitter Firehose, and Facebook updates. Numerous applications must process fast data. Can we provide a MapReduce-style framework so that developers can quickly write such applications and execute them over a cluster of machines, to achieve low latency and high scalability? In this paper we report on our investigation of this question, as carried out at Kosmix and WalmartLabs. We describe MapUpdate, a framework like MapReduce, but specifically developed for fast data. We describe Muppet, our implementation of MapUpdate. Throughout the description we highlight the key challenges, argue why MapReduce is not well suited to address them, and briefly describe our current solutions. Finally, we describe our experience and lessons learned with Muppet, which has been used extensively at Kosmix and WalmartLabs to power a broad range of applications in social media and e-commerce.Comment: VLDB201

Linking Farmers to Markets Through Cooperatives Vegetables Supply Chain Redesign Options for Kapatagan, Mindanao, Philippines

The paper looks into the temperate vegetable industry in Kapatagan, an upland community in Mindanao, the Southern part of the Philippines. The intention in general is to identify ways by which smallholder vegetable producers are appropriately linked to markets through cooperatives with the end in view of increasing farmers’ income. Specifically the paper documented existing vegetable supply chains in Kapatagan as well as other relevant chains, assessed the various chains’ gaps and potentials in view of changing concepts and market requirements with supply chain and agro-industrial concepts as bases and identified entry points for chain enhancements.Farm Management, Production Economics,

“Prosumage” and the British electricity market

Domestic electricity consumers with PV panels have become known as “prosumers”; some of them also have energy storage and we have named the combination “prosumage”. T he challenges of renewable intermittency could be offset by storing power, and m any engineering st udies consider the role and value of storage which is properly integrated into the ‘smart grid’. Such a system with holistic optimal control may fail to materialise for regulatory, economic, or behavioural reasons. We therefore model the impact of naïve prosumage: households which use storage only to maximise self- consumption of PV, with no consideration of the wider system. We find it is neither economic for arbitrage nor particularly beneficial for shaving peaks and filling troughs in national net demand. The extreme case of renewable self -sufficiency, becoming completely independent of the grid, is still prohibitively expensive in Britain and Germany, and even in a country like Spain with a much better solar resource

Old Friends - New Realities: California\u27s Economic Relationship with Hong Kong and Taiwan and Trade Policy Report

Last year the Advisory Council on Asia (ACA) was asked by Lieutenant Governor Leo McCarthy to conduct a fact-finding mission to Asia. We believed, as he did, that the pace of economic and political developments in the region was reshaping Asia so quickly and so profoundly that the attention was warranted. As members of California\u27s Asian community and business people involved with Pacific Rim commerce, we believed we could make a major contribution in assessing these developments and their importance to California. We had not anticipated, however, that our mission would provide the impetus for a series of reports documenting fundamental changes in the economies of the region, or that this work would be far more extensive than originally envisioned. We have also had to rethink some of our conclusions regarding the economic future of the region in light of the tumultuous events in China. The scope of this work was also expanded in another way. We recognized the need to make it as much a policy guide for government officials as a working document for those involved in Asian commerce. For its first report the ACA focuses its attention on two of the so-called four tigers of Asia -- Hong Kong and Taiwan. Although they have much in common, including history and culture, they are nonetheless two very distinct economic and political entities at different junctures in their development

Old Friends - New Realities: California\u27s Economic Relationship with Hong Kong and Taiwan and Trade Policy Report

Last year the Advisory Council on Asia (ACA) was asked by Lieutenant Governor Leo McCarthy to conduct a fact-finding mission to Asia. We believed, as he did, that the pace of economic and political developments in the region was reshaping Asia so quickly and so profoundly that the attention was warranted. As members of California\u27s Asian community and business people involved with Pacific Rim commerce, we believed we could make a major contribution in assessing these developments and their importance to California. We had not anticipated, however, that our mission would provide the impetus for a series of reports documenting fundamental changes in the economies of the region, or that this work would be far more extensive than originally envisioned. We have also had to rethink some of our conclusions regarding the economic future of the region in light of the tumultuous events in China. The scope of this work was also expanded in another way. We recognized the need to make it as much a policy guide for government officials as a working document for those involved in Asian commerce. For its first report the ACA focuses its attention on two of the so-called four tigers of Asia -- Hong Kong and Taiwan. Although they have much in common, including history and culture, they are nonetheless two very distinct economic and political entities at different junctures in their development

India - India's growing conflict between trade and transport : issues and options

India was a rather marginal participant in world trade during the early years after independence. Since 1980, however, the structure and orientation of Indian export trades have undergone fundamental changes. Substantial progress has been made in diversifying the export base - manufactured goods have increased and the traditional bulk sector has shrunk. Key targets for the export of manufactured goods are the European, Japanese and North American markets. However, these markets are characterized by increasingly efficient trade logistics, including containerization and multimodal transport arrangements. To enable further trade growth, India is confronted with a need to tie into the highly organized international trade logistics networks, something the country is totally unprepared to cope with in terms of demanding logistical arrangements. There is a real danger that India's trade performance will deteriorate, if no corrective measures are taken. A highly fragmented service industry, outdated regulations, heavy Government control, a constrained private sector, and largely inadequate infrastructure have curtailed efforts to improve trade logistics, including containerization and multimodal transport arrangements in India. Major reforms are called for so that an effective framework for initiating urgently required system adjustments can be established.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Transport and Trade Logistics,Common Carriers Industry

Knothole April 1, 1992 Vol 44 No 23

The mission of The Knothole publication is to provide its readers with writings that are both stimulating and contemporary; to inform its students of clubs, events, and off-campus happenings; to challenge a world driven by progress to uncover the truth about current environmental policies and innovations; and to express such ideas, ingeniously and collectively.https://digitalcommons.esf.edu/knothole/1557/thumbnail.jp