Intensional Cyberforensics

This work focuses on the application of intensional logic to cyberforensic analysis and its benefits and difficulties are compared with the finite-state-automata approach. This work extends the use of the intensional programming paradigm to the modeling and implementation of a cyberforensics investigation process with backtracing of event reconstruction, in which evidence is modeled by multidimensional hierarchical contexts, and proofs or disproofs of claims are undertaken in an eductive manner of evaluation. This approach is a practical, context-aware improvement over the finite state automata (FSA) approach we have seen in previous work. As a base implementation language model, we use in this approach a new dialect of the Lucid programming language, called Forensic Lucid, and we focus on defining hierarchical contexts based on intensional logic for the distributed evaluation of cyberforensic expressions. We also augment the work with credibility factors surrounding digital evidence and witness accounts, which have not been previously modeled. The Forensic Lucid programming language, used for this intensional cyberforensic analysis, formally presented through its syntax and operational semantics. In large part, the language is based on its predecessor and codecessor Lucid dialects, such as GIPL, Indexical Lucid, Lucx, Objective Lucid, and JOOIP bound by the underlying intensional programming paradigm.Comment: 412 pages, 94 figures, 18 tables, 19 algorithms and listings; PhD thesis; v2 corrects some typos and refs; also available on Spectrum at http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/977460

Cognitive-linguistic manipulation and persuasion in Agatha Christie

This thesis presents some of the many methods which Agatha Christie uses to manipulate readers away from and towards the eventual resolutions of her fiction. It draws on a variety of linguistic, psychological, narratological and stylistic models to describe the specific techniques employed by Christie to manipulate and distract her readers. The research undertaken employs practical studies in schemata, scenario-dependence, depth of cognitive processing, rhetorical-structural persuasion, unreliable narration, social cognition theories of character attribution, and ideas from the study of mind style to analyse manipulation in some of Christie’s most notable works. These works include the novels Murder on the Orient Express, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Death in the Clouds, Cards on the Table and The ABC Murders, in addition to lesser-known short stories from The Thirteen Problems and Poirot Investigates. More specifically, following the introduction, the analyses in Chapter 2 operate through models of the psychological processing of texts and the way that linguistic indicators are interpreted by readers. ‘Red herrings’ and ‘buried clues’ are defined and examined using cognitive theories of schemata (information networks), scenario-dependence and a reader’s depth of processing. This is followed by Chapter 3, a rhetorical and structural analysis of persuasive practices within an extract of Christie’s fiction, where her detective Hercule Poirot attempts to convince both the assembled characters and the novel’s reader of the necessary truth of the solution he is presenting. In this chapter I introduce my own adaptation of Rhetorical Structure Theory designed for analyses of long extracts of a narrative text is also introduced. Chapter 4 looks at narratological and cognitive methods of describing character and narrator unreliability and ambiguity, through studies of an unreliable narrator, the nature of some witnesses’ minds within different novels, and the presentation of the ambiguous thoughts of an important suspect using techniques taken from the study of mind style. The thesis aims primarily to describe and illustrate in a systematic manner a selection of the many different ways in which Christie manipulates readers, and points the way to other techniques of this sort. The breadth of the frameworks employed is intended to emphasise the range of Christie’s techniques, and to demonstrate that detective fiction contains many uses of complex manipulation which would bear further study

Humour and (im)politeness in Chinese sitcom discourse : a case study of Ipartment

The interaction between humour and (im)politeness in Chinese sitcom discourse is an important yet underexplored research field in current humour, (im)politeness and sitcom studies. This study draws on Brock’s (2015) participation framework in sitcom theory, the General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH) (Attardo, 1994) and (im)politeness theories (Bousfield, 2008; Brown & Levinson, 1987; Culpeper, 2011) as a combined theoretical framework to address the major research concern. This study explores humour and (im)politeness in Chinese sitcoms by decoding the characteristics of aggressive humour and non-aggressive humour in one of the most representative of all Chinese sitcoms: Ipartment. The current study investigates four essential aspects of conversational humour. These aspects are (1) the semantic and pragmatic aspects of humour; (2) the production and reception of humour among characters; (3) the functions of humour across the two communicative levels (i.e. the communicative level between the collective sender and TV viewers, and the communicative level among characters) in sitcom discourse and (4) the social and cultural aspects of humour in Chinese. The first season (twenty episodes in total) of the Chinese sitcom, Ipartment, constitutes the main corpus of the current study. A new analytical framework of conversational humour in sitcom discourse is proposed, and this framework explicates detailed ways to identify, classify and interpret conversational humour in the Chinese sitcom, Ipartment. With the aid of the proposed framework, the study identifies a total of 2,861 lines of conversational humour in Ipartment. Based on the criteria that are adapted from Dynel (2016a), 1,526 lines of humour are classified as aggressive humour and 1,335 lines as non-aggressive humour. Lastly, humour is interpreted from the abovementioned four essential aspects. To be more specific, the current study utilises the six Knowledge Resources in GTVH (Attardo, 1994) to analyse how humour arises from characters’ (im)polite remarks. Then, the communicative effects of humour among characters are examined from the perspectives of the speaker’s intention and the hearers’ responses. Subsequently, humour is analysed by exploring how humour serves different functions, including solidarity-based, power-based and psychological functions (Hay, 1995), at two communicative levels. Lastly, the discussion is concluded with the analysis of the social and cultural aspects of humour in contemporary Chinese discourse. The results show that characters in Ipartment show a marked propensity to aggressive humour rather than non-aggressive humour. Aggressive humour usually incurs different communicative effects and different functions across the two communicative levels. In most cases, aggressive humour in Ipartment are intentionally exploited by the collective sender to amuse TV viewers only; with no humour perceived by any characters and usually generating instances of genuine aggression between characters. These overtly aggressive remarks largely serve a power enhancement role among characters. However, no matter how aggressive the remarks are perceived by characters, the collective sender always aims to enhance affiliation with TV viewers through these impolite yet humorous remarks. Regarding non-aggressive humour, the number of failed humour largely surpasses the amount of successful humour. This is to say, although the speaking characters’ humour conveys no intentional aggression, humour may still be rejected by the hearing characters for reasons such as inappropriateness and miscommunication. Non-aggressive humour usually performs a solidarity-oriented role at both communicative levels. The significance of this study is summarised as follows: (1) this study proposes working definitions of conversational humour, aggressive humour and non-aggressive humour in sitcom discourse. It provides new perspectives to the current conceptual debates of non-aggressive humour; (2) this study proposes a new analytical framework to address conversational humour in sitcom discourse. Furthermore, a set of criteria are summarised to distinguish aggressive and non-aggressive humour. It is the first study that provides a systematic approach to conversational humour and the first one to provide detailed criteria to distinguish aggressive and non-aggressive humour in sitcom discourse; (3) this study identifies some Chinese-specific characteristics of aggression and humour in contemporary Chinese conversational discourse, and it contributes to the underexplored field of humour and (im)politeness in Chinese discourse

Cultural Contact in Early Roman Spain through Linked Open Data

The study of the Roman colonisation of the western provinces has produced much literature, especially about the processes of assimilation of Roman culture by indigenous communities and the cultural changes experienced by these under Roman influence. In Spain, traditional scholarship has looked mainly at the literary evidence for these processes, and therefore, the ‘Roman’ perspective of the conquest; current schools of thought argue for a new reading of the cultural processes rooted in theory and a contextualised analysis of archaeological data. Traditional methods lacked the tools capable of making effective relationships within large amounts of data. Linked Open Data (hereafter LOD) technologies provide the means to resolve this deadlock. In the last decade, a number of projects have made available large amounts of data leading to a burgeoning of resources that rely on LOD technologies. The number of databases collecting information from Hispania is also continuously increasing. While these resources provide a vast amount of material, most of them do not meet open-access requirements, becoming information silos that hinder information accessibility and interoperability. This research applies LOD technologies to align and connect web-exposed datasets (that follow or can be integrated to follow LOD standards) together with enhanced and aggregated information to investigate the dynamics of cultural interaction in the southern area of Spain between the 4th century BCE and the 1st century CE on the basis of epigraphic, monetary and sculptural evidence. Ultimately, this thesis examines the extent to which the application of LOD technologies can improve the way archaeological information is accessed, retrieved and analysed by means of a LOD dataset (ERUB) and the Cultural Contact Ontology (CuCoO)

Security and trust in cloud computing and IoT through applying obfuscation, diversification, and trusted computing technologies

Cloud computing and Internet of Things (IoT) are very widely spread and commonly used technologies nowadays. The advanced services offered by cloud computing have made it a highly demanded technology. Enterprises and businesses are more and more relying on the cloud to deliver services to their customers. The prevalent use of cloud means that more data is stored outside the organization’s premises, which raises concerns about the security and privacy of the stored and processed data. This highlights the significance of effective security practices to secure the cloud infrastructure. The number of IoT devices is growing rapidly and the technology is being employed in a wide range of sectors including smart healthcare, industry automation, and smart environments. These devices collect and exchange a great deal of information, some of which may contain critical and personal data of the users of the device. Hence, it is highly significant to protect the collected and shared data over the network; notwithstanding, the studies signify that attacks on these devices are increasing, while a high percentage of IoT devices lack proper security measures to protect the devices, the data, and the privacy of the users. In this dissertation, we study the security of cloud computing and IoT and propose software-based security approaches supported by the hardware-based technologies to provide robust measures for enhancing the security of these environments. To achieve this goal, we use obfuscation and diversification as the potential software security techniques. Code obfuscation protects the software from malicious reverse engineering and diversification mitigates the risk of large-scale exploits. We study trusted computing and Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) as the hardware-based security solutions. Trusted Platform Module (TPM) provides security and trust through a hardware root of trust, and assures the integrity of a platform. We also study Intel SGX which is a TEE solution that guarantees the integrity and confidentiality of the code and data loaded onto its protected container, enclave. More precisely, through obfuscation and diversification of the operating systems and APIs of the IoT devices, we secure them at the application level, and by obfuscation and diversification of the communication protocols, we protect the communication of data between them at the network level. For securing the cloud computing, we employ obfuscation and diversification techniques for securing the cloud computing software at the client-side. For an enhanced level of security, we employ hardware-based security solutions, TPM and SGX. These solutions, in addition to security, ensure layered trust in various layers from hardware to the application. As the result of this PhD research, this dissertation addresses a number of security risks targeting IoT and cloud computing through the delivered publications and presents a brief outlook on the future research directions.Pilvilaskenta ja esineiden internet ovat nykyään hyvin tavallisia ja laajasti sovellettuja tekniikkoja. Pilvilaskennan pitkälle kehittyneet palvelut ovat tehneet siitä hyvin kysytyn teknologian. Yritykset enenevässä määrin nojaavat pilviteknologiaan toteuttaessaan palveluita asiakkailleen. Vallitsevassa pilviteknologian soveltamistilanteessa yritykset ulkoistavat tietojensa käsittelyä yrityksen ulkopuolelle, minkä voidaan nähdä nostavan esiin huolia taltioitavan ja käsiteltävän tiedon turvallisuudesta ja yksityisyydestä. Tämä korostaa tehokkaiden turvallisuusratkaisujen merkitystä osana pilvi-infrastruktuurin turvaamista. Esineiden internet -laitteiden lukumäärä on nopeasti kasvanut. Teknologiana sitä sovelletaan laajasti monilla sektoreilla, kuten älykkäässä terveydenhuollossa, teollisuusautomaatiossa ja älytiloissa. Sellaiset laitteet keräävät ja välittävät suuria määriä informaatiota, joka voi sisältää laitteiden käyttäjien kannalta kriittistä ja yksityistä tietoa. Tästä syystä johtuen on erittäin merkityksellistä suojata verkon yli kerättävää ja jaettavaa tietoa. Monet tutkimukset osoittavat esineiden internet -laitteisiin kohdistuvien tietoturvahyökkäysten määrän olevan nousussa, ja samaan aikaan suuri osuus näistä laitteista ei omaa kunnollisia teknisiä ominaisuuksia itse laitteiden tai niiden käyttäjien yksityisen tiedon suojaamiseksi. Tässä väitöskirjassa tutkitaan pilvilaskennan sekä esineiden internetin tietoturvaa ja esitetään ohjelmistopohjaisia tietoturvalähestymistapoja turvautumalla osittain laitteistopohjaisiin teknologioihin. Esitetyt lähestymistavat tarjoavat vankkoja keinoja tietoturvallisuuden kohentamiseksi näissä konteksteissa. Tämän saavuttamiseksi työssä sovelletaan obfuskaatiota ja diversifiointia potentiaalisiana ohjelmistopohjaisina tietoturvatekniikkoina. Suoritettavan koodin obfuskointi suojaa pahantahtoiselta ohjelmiston takaisinmallinnukselta ja diversifiointi torjuu tietoturva-aukkojen laaja-alaisen hyödyntämisen riskiä. Väitöskirjatyössä tutkitaan luotettua laskentaa ja luotettavan laskennan suoritusalustoja laitteistopohjaisina tietoturvaratkaisuina. TPM (Trusted Platform Module) tarjoaa turvallisuutta ja luottamuksellisuutta rakentuen laitteistopohjaiseen luottamukseen. Pyrkimyksenä on taata suoritusalustan eheys. Työssä tutkitaan myös Intel SGX:ää yhtenä luotettavan suorituksen suoritusalustana, joka takaa suoritettavan koodin ja datan eheyden sekä luottamuksellisuuden pohjautuen suojatun säiliön, saarekkeen, tekniseen toteutukseen. Tarkemmin ilmaistuna työssä turvataan käyttöjärjestelmä- ja sovellusrajapintatasojen obfuskaation ja diversifioinnin kautta esineiden internet -laitteiden ohjelmistokerrosta. Soveltamalla samoja tekniikoita protokollakerrokseen, työssä suojataan laitteiden välistä tiedonvaihtoa verkkotasolla. Pilvilaskennan turvaamiseksi työssä sovelletaan obfuskaatio ja diversifiointitekniikoita asiakaspuolen ohjelmistoratkaisuihin. Vankemman tietoturvallisuuden saavuttamiseksi työssä hyödynnetään laitteistopohjaisia TPM- ja SGX-ratkaisuja. Tietoturvallisuuden lisäksi nämä ratkaisut tarjoavat monikerroksisen luottamuksen rakentuen laitteistotasolta ohjelmistokerrokseen asti. Tämän väitöskirjatutkimustyön tuloksena, osajulkaisuiden kautta, vastataan moniin esineiden internet -laitteisiin ja pilvilaskentaan kohdistuviin tietoturvauhkiin. Työssä esitetään myös näkemyksiä jatkotutkimusaiheista

Famtile: An Algorithm For Learning High-level Tactical Behavior From Observation

This research focuses on the learning of a class of behaviors defined as high-level behaviors. High-level behaviors are defined here as behaviors that can be executed using a sequence of identifiable behaviors. Represented by low-level contexts, these behaviors are known a priori to learning and can be modeled separately by a knowledge engineer. The learning task, which is achieved by observing an expert within simulation, then becomes the identification and representation of the low-level context sequence executed by the expert. To learn this sequence, this research proposes FAMTILE - the Fuzzy ARTMAP / Template-Based Interpretation Learning Engine. This algorithm attempts to achieve this learning task by constructing rules that govern the low-level context transitions made by the expert. By combining these rules with models for these low-level context behaviors, it is hypothesized that an intelligent model for the expert can be created that can adequately model his behavior. To evaluate FAMTILE, four testing scenarios were developed that attempt to achieve three distinct evaluation goals: assessing the learning capabilities of Fuzzy ARTMAP, evaluating the ability of FAMTILE to correctly predict expert actions and context choices given an observation, and creating a model of the expert\u27s behavior that can perform the high-level task at a comparable level of proficiency

Development of deep learning applications for the automated extraction of chemical information from scientific literature

This dissertation focuses on developing deep learning applications for extracting chemical information from scientific literature, particularly targeting the automated recognition of molecular structures in images. DECIMER Segmentation, a novel application, employs a Mask Region-based Convolutional Neural Network (MRCNN) model to segment chemical structures in documents, aided by a mask expansion algorithm, marking a significant advancement in processing chemical literature. The Optical Chemical Structure Recognition (OCSR) tool DECIMER Image Transformer uses an encoder-decoder architecture to convert chemical structure depictions into the machine-readable SMILES format. The model has been trained on over 450 million pairs of images and SMILES representations. Its ability to interpret various depiction styles, including hand-drawn structures, sets a new standard in OCSR. To artificially generate large and diverse OCSR training datasets using multiple cheminformatics toolkits, RanDepict was developed. The diversification of training data ensures robust model generalisation across different chemical structure depictions. A unique dataset of hand-drawn molecule images was created to evaluate the model's performance in interpreting these challenging depictions. This dataset further contributes to the understanding of automated structure recognition from diverse styles. The integration of these technologies led to the creation of DECIMER.ai, an open-source web application that combines segmentation and interpretation tools, allowing users to extract and process chemical information from literature efficiently. The work concludes with a discussion on the significance of open data in advancing molecular informatics, highlighting the potential to broader chemical research domains. By adhering to FAIR data standards and open-source principles, the tools developed for this dissertation are designed for adaptability and future development within the community