Understanding Persistent-Memory Related Issues in the Linux Kernel

Persistent memory (PM) technologies have inspired a wide range of PM-based system optimizations. However, building correct PM-based systems is difficult due to the unique characteristics of PM hardware. To better understand the challenges as well as the opportunities to address them, this paper presents a comprehensive study of PM-related issues in the Linux kernel. By analyzing 1,553 PM-related kernel patches in-depth and conducting experiments on reproducibility and tool extension, we derive multiple insights in terms of PM patch categories, PM bug patterns, consequences, fix strategies, triggering conditions, and remedy solutions. We hope our results could contribute to the development of robust PM-based storage systemsComment: ACM TRANSACTIONS ON STORAGE(TOS'23

Fuzz Driver Generation

Poor software quality has led to tremendous costs and safety disasters, thus, software defects make the news with alarming regularity. Fuzzing is a bug detection technique. In particular, it is a software testing method where a stream of random input is sent to an application to stress the application and cause unexpected behaviour, resource leaks or crashes. When it comes to fuzzing software libraries, a fuzz driver plays an important role because it is the binder between the fuzzer and the target program. Traditionally fuzzing was used in closed-source platforms and also it is used to find vulnerabilities in kernels. However, recent developments show that fuzzing is now applied to open-source libraries. This research study analyses the role of a fuzz driver in the domain of fuzzing to recognise its importance, applications, techniques, challenges and future directions. This study intends to explore the state-of-the-art fuzz driver development strategies and identify trends in research and areas of potential improvements. We identified that fuzz driver generation is mainly seen as a minor activity in fuzzing research. It was evident that the development of a fuzz driver is laborious and time-consuming in nature but multiple innovative methodologies have been adopted in recent years to ease this task There are three main techniques to develop a fuzz driver: software developers manually writing a fuzz driver, semi-automatic generation of a fuzz driver through human-in-the-loop approaches and fully automatic generation of a fuzz driver. This research study evaluates these techniques through case studies and empirical analysis to recognise the best state-of-the-art fuzz driver generation strategy available for researchers and software testers. Our results show that manually developed fuzz drivers still outperform other methodologies in terms of performance but our results show how other methodologies could surpass their performance levels. Furthermore, this study analyses the effect of varying complexity levels of target functions on the performance of the fuzzing campaigns initiated through multiple fuzz driver generation techniques.Thesis (MPhil) -- University of Adelaide, School of Computer Science , 202

Independent, No.12, December 10, 1992

The Independent was a student-run newspaper created in 1960 at Newark State College, now Kean University. The proceeding title was The Reflector. The editor of this issue was Todd F. Brugmans.https://digitalcommons.kean.edu/independent_1990-1994/1063/thumbnail.jp

Building information modeling – A game changer for interoperability and a chance for digital preservation of architectural data?

Digital data associated with the architectural design-andconstruction process is an essential resource alongside -and even past- the lifecycle of the construction object it describes. Despite this, digital architectural data remains to be largely neglected in digital preservation research – and vice versa, digital preservation is so far neglected in the design-and-construction process. In the last 5 years, Building Information Modeling (BIM) has seen a growing adoption in the architecture and construction domains, marking a large step towards much needed interoperability. The open standard IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) is one way in which data is exchanged in BIM processes. This paper presents a first digital preservation based look at BIM processes, highlighting the history and adoption of the methods as well as the open file format standard IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) as one way to store and preserve BIM data

Characterising and modeling the co-evolution of transportation networks and territories

The identification of structuring effects of transportation infrastructure on territorial dynamics remains an open research problem. This issue is one of the aspects of approaches on complexity of territorial dynamics, within which territories and networks would be co-evolving. The aim of this thesis is to challenge this view on interactions between networks and territories, both at the conceptual and empirical level, by integrating them in simulation models of territorial systems.Comment: Doctoral dissertation (2017), Universit\'e Paris 7 Denis Diderot. Translated from French. Several papers compose this PhD thesis; overlap with: arXiv:{1605.08888, 1608.00840, 1608.05266, 1612.08504, 1706.07467, 1706.09244, 1708.06743, 1709.08684, 1712.00805, 1803.11457, 1804.09416, 1804.09430, 1805.05195, 1808.07282, 1809.00861, 1811.04270, 1812.01473, 1812.06008, 1908.02034, 2012.13367, 2102.13501, 2106.11996

Maritime expressions:a corpus based exploration of maritime metaphors

This study uses a purpose-built corpus to explore the linguistic legacy of Britain’s maritime history found in the form of hundreds of specialised ‘Maritime Expressions’ (MEs), such as TAKEN ABACK, ANCHOR and ALOOF, that permeate modern English. Selecting just those expressions commencing with ’A’, it analyses 61 MEs in detail and describes the processes by which these technical expressions, from a highly specialised occupational discourse community, have made their way into modern English. The Maritime Text Corpus (MTC) comprises 8.8 million words, encompassing a range of text types and registers, selected to provide a cross-section of ‘maritime’ writing. It is analysed using WordSmith analytical software (Scott, 2010), with the 100 million-word British National Corpus (BNC) as a reference corpus. Using the MTC, a list of keywords of specific salience within the maritime discourse has been compiled and, using frequency data, concordances and collocations, these MEs are described in detail and their use and form in the MTC and the BNC is compared. The study examines the transformation from ME to figurative use in the general discourse, in terms of form and metaphoricity. MEs are classified according to their metaphorical strength and their transference from maritime usage into new registers and domains such as those of business, politics, sports and reportage etc. A revised model of metaphoricity is developed and a new category of figurative expression, the ‘resonator’, is proposed. Additionally, developing the work of Lakov and Johnson, Kovesces and others on Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), a number of Maritime Conceptual Metaphors are identified and their cultural significance is discussed

Fuzzing Janus for Fun and Profit

Fuzzing is an automated software testing technique that looks for vulnerabilities by causing crashes through the introduction of invalid, unexpected, or random data as program inputs. It is used to improve both the robustness and the security of software. In this paper we apply fuzzing to test the behavior of the Janus WebRTC media server. We describe how we used fuzz testing to fix a few important issues that had been discovered in our software. We also discuss how we leveraged the gained experience in order to build an automated process helping us mitigate the appearance of this kind of issues in the future releases of our server