Checking Zenon Modulo Proofs in Dedukti

Dedukti has been proposed as a universal proof checker. It is a logical framework based on the lambda Pi calculus modulo that is used as a backend to verify proofs coming from theorem provers, especially those implementing some form of rewriting. We present a shallow embedding into Dedukti of proofs produced by Zenon Modulo, an extension of the tableau-based first-order theorem prover Zenon to deduction modulo and typing. Zenon Modulo is applied to the verification of programs in both academic and industrial projects. The purpose of our embedding is to increase the confidence in automatically generated proofs by separating untrusted proof search from trusted proof verification.Comment: In Proceedings PxTP 2015, arXiv:1507.0837

Security for Grid Services

Grid computing is concerned with the sharing and coordinated use of diverse resources in distributed "virtual organizations." The dynamic and multi-institutional nature of these environments introduces challenging security issues that demand new technical approaches. In particular, one must deal with diverse local mechanisms, support dynamic creation of services, and enable dynamic creation of trust domains. We describe how these issues are addressed in two generations of the Globus Toolkit. First, we review the Globus Toolkit version 2 (GT2) approach; then, we describe new approaches developed to support the Globus Toolkit version 3 (GT3) implementation of the Open Grid Services Architecture, an initiative that is recasting Grid concepts within a service oriented framework based on Web services. GT3's security implementation uses Web services security mechanisms for credential exchange and other purposes, and introduces a tight least-privilege model that avoids the need for any privileged network service.Comment: 10 pages; 4 figure

A New Institutional Analysis of IFRS Adoption in Egypt: A Case Study of Loosely Coupled Rules and Routines

This paper examines the symbolic use of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in an Egyptian state-owned company (AQF Co.) that is partially privatised by drawing on new institutional sociology and its extensions. It explains how the ceremonial use of IFRS is shaped by the interplay between institutionalised accounting practices, conflicting institutions, power relations and the use of IT to institutionalizing accounting rules and routines. The research methodology is based on using an intensive case study. Data were collected from multiple sources, including unstructured and semi-structured interviews, direct and participative observations, discussions and documentary analysis. The findings revealed that the company faced conflicting institutional demands from outside. The Central Agency for Accountancy required the company to use the Uniform Accounting System (as a state-owned enterprise) and The Egyptian Capital Market Authority required the company to use IFRS (as a partially private sector company registered in the stock exchange). To meet these conflicting institutional demands, the company adopted loosely coupled accounting rules and routines and IT was used to institutionalizing existing Uniform Accounting System and preserving the status quo

Independent Evaluation of the Jim Joseph Foundation's Education Initiative Final Report

The Jim Joseph Foundation created the Education Initiative to increase the number of educators and educational leaders who are prepared to design and implement high-quality Jewish education programs. The Jim Joseph Foundation granted $45 million to three premier Jewish higher education institutions (each institution received$15 million) and challenged them to plan and implement programs that used new content and teaching approaches to increase the number of highly qualified Jewish educators serving the field. The three grantees were Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR), the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), and Yeshiva University (YU). The grant covered program operation costs as well as other costs associated with institutional capacity building. The majority of the funds (75 percent) targeted program planning and operation. The grantees designed and piloted six new master's degree and doctoral degree programs or concentrations;1 eight new certificate, leadership, and professional development programs;2 two new induction programs;3 and four new seminars within the degree programs. 4 The Education Initiative also supported financial assistance for students in eight other advanced degree programs. 5 The grantees piloted innovative teaching models and expanded their use of educational technology in the degree and professional development programs. According to the theory of change that drives the Jim Joseph Foundation's Education Initiative, five types of activities must take place if higher education institutions are to successfully enhance the Jewish education workforce. These activities include (1) improved marketing and recruitment of talented individuals into ongoing education programs, (2) a richer menu of programs requiring different commitments of time to complete and offering varying content, (3) induction programs to support program participants' transition to new employment settings, (4) well-planned and comprehensive strategies for financial sustainability, and (5) interinstitutional collaboration. As shown in Exhibit 1, the five types of activities are divided into two primary categories. The first category (boxes outlined in green) addresses the delivery of programs that provide educators and educational leaders with research-based and theory-based knowledge and vetted instructional tools. The second category (boxes outlined in orange) is not programmatic; rather, it involves sharing knowledge, building staff capabilities, enhancing management structures, and providing technological and financial support to enable the development of quality programming that is sustainable after the grant ends

Validating a Web Service Security Abstraction by Typing

An XML web service is, to a first approximation, an RPC service in which requests and responses are encoded in XML as SOAP envelopes, and transported over HTTP. We consider the problem of authenticating requests and responses at the SOAP-level, rather than relying on transport-level security. We propose a security abstraction, inspired by earlier work on secure RPC, in which the methods exported by a web service are annotated with one of three security levels: none, authenticated, or both authenticated and encrypted. We model our abstraction as an object calculus with primitives for defining and calling web services. We describe the semantics of our object calculus by translating to a lower-level language with primitives for message passing and cryptography. To validate our semantics, we embed correspondence assertions that specify the correct authentication of requests and responses. By appeal to the type theory for cryptographic protocols of Gordon and Jeffrey's Cryptyc, we verify the correspondence assertions simply by typing. Finally, we describe an implementation of our semantics via custom SOAP headers.Comment: 44 pages. A preliminary version appears in the Proceedings of the Workshop on XML Security 2002, pp. 18-29, November 200

Dis-lodging literature from English: Challenging linguistic hegemonies

This paper problematises the location of literature "teaching" within the English (L1) curriculum, as is the case in New Zealand and other settings. It defamiliarises this arrangement by drawing attention to official New Zealand policies of biculturalism and to the increasing cultural and linguistic diversity in many New Zealand classrooms. It identifies a number of social justice issues arising from the current arrangement, and also raises issues in respect of educational policy and ways in which canonical subjects become constructed in practice. It then discusses ways in which a new qualifications template developed at the University of Waikato might provide a vehicle for establishing a new arrangement, in terms of which literature study is dislodged from English and reshaped as a course of study entitled Literature in Society. It indicates ways in which Comparative Literature, as a predominantly university-constituted discipline, might contribute to the theorisation of this new arrangement

A WebRTC Video Chat Implementation Within the Yioop Search Engine

Web real-time communication (abbreviated as WebRTC) is one of the latest Web application technologies that allows voice, video, and data to work collectively in a browser without a need for third-party plugins or proprietary software installation. When two browsers from different locations communicate with each other, they must know how to locate each other, bypass security and firewall protections, and transmit all multimedia communications in real time. This project not only illustrates how WebRTC technology works but also walks through a real example of video chat-style application. The application communicates between two remote users using WebSocket and the data encryption algorithm specified in WebRTC technology. This project concludes with a description of the WebRTC video chat application’s implementation in Yioop.com, a PHP-based internet search engine