Multi-layer virtual transport network management

Nowadays there is an increasing need for a general paradigm which can simplify network management and further enable network innovations. Software Defined Networking (SDN) is an efficient way to make the network programmable and reduce management complexity, however it is plagued with limitations inherited from the legacy Internet (TCP/IP) architecture. In this paper, in response to limitations of current Software Defined Networking (SDN) management solutions, we propose a recursive approach to enterprise network management, where network management is done through managing various Virtual Transport Networks (VTNs) over different scopes (i.e., regions of operation). Different from the traditional virtual network model which mainly focuses on routing/tunneling, our VTN provides communication service with explicit Quality-of-Service (QoS) support for applications via transport flows, and it involves all mechanisms (e.g., addressing, routing, error and flow control, resource allocation) needed to support such transport flows. Based on this approach, we design and implement a management architecture, which recurses the same VTN-based management mechanism for enterprise network management. Our experimental results show that our management architecture achieves better performance.National Science Foundation awards: CNS-0963974 and CNS-1346688

Investigating the information-seeking behaviour of academic lawyers: From Ellis's model to design.

Information-seeking is important for lawyers, who have access to many dedicated electronic resources.However there is considerable scope for improving the design of these resources to better support information-seeking. One way of informing design is to use information-seeking models as theoretical lenses to analyse users’ behaviour with existing systems. However many models, including those informed by studying lawyers, analyse information-seeking at a high level of abstraction and are only likely to lead to broad-scoped design insights. We illustrate that one potentially useful (and lowerlevel) model is Ellis’s - by using it as a lens to analyse and make design suggestions based on the information-seeking behaviour of twenty-seven academic lawyers, who were asked to think aloud whilst using electronic legal resources to find information for their work. We identify similar information-seeking behaviours to those originally found by Ellis and his colleagues in scientific domains, along with several that were not identified in previous studies such as ‘updating’ (which we believe is particularly pertinent to legal information-seeking). We also present a refinement of Ellis’s model based on the identification of several levels that the behaviours were found to operate at and the identification of sets of mutually exclusive subtypes of behaviours

Software Defined Networks based Smart Grid Communication: A Comprehensive Survey

The current power grid is no longer a feasible solution due to ever-increasing user demand of electricity, old infrastructure, and reliability issues and thus require transformation to a better grid a.k.a., smart grid (SG). The key features that distinguish SG from the conventional electrical power grid are its capability to perform two-way communication, demand side management, and real time pricing. Despite all these advantages that SG will bring, there are certain issues which are specific to SG communication system. For instance, network management of current SG systems is complex, time consuming, and done manually. Moreover, SG communication (SGC) system is built on different vendor specific devices and protocols. Therefore, the current SG systems are not protocol independent, thus leading to interoperability issue. Software defined network (SDN) has been proposed to monitor and manage the communication networks globally. This article serves as a comprehensive survey on SDN-based SGC. In this article, we first discuss taxonomy of advantages of SDNbased SGC.We then discuss SDN-based SGC architectures, along with case studies. Our article provides an in-depth discussion on routing schemes for SDN-based SGC. We also provide detailed survey of security and privacy schemes applied to SDN-based SGC. We furthermore present challenges, open issues, and future research directions related to SDN-based SGC.Comment: Accepte

Interest Rate Swaps

Interest rates changes have a huge impact on the business performance. Therefore, it is of great importance for the market participants to identify and adequately manage this risk. Financial derivatives are a relatively simple way of protection from adverse changes in interest rates. Interest rate swaps are particularly popular because they reduce interest rate risk to a minimum with a relatively low initial cost and without great risk, but also because of the fact that there are many modifications of the standard swap created to better satisfy the different needs of market players

Derivatives Clearinghouses: Clearing the Way to Failure

One of the major components of Dodd-Frank was a comprehensive regulatory framework for over-the-counter derivatives. A key feature of this framework is a requirement that many of these derivatives be cleared through central counterparty clearinghouses. Clearinghouses have long played a stabilizing force in many markets, but Dodd-Frank’s regulatory mandate may adversely affect the way they operate. Risk management by clearinghouses and market participants could suffer, and improper risks could find their way into clearinghouses. If a clearinghouse were to fail, there would be tremendous pressure for the government to bail it out in the name of financial stability. Dodd-Frank’s derivatives framework should be reconsidered before it destabilizes the financial system. A better approach would empower market participants to decide whether to use clearinghouses and would allow clearinghouses the regulatory latitude to effectively manage their risks

Derivatives Clearinghouses: Clearing the Way to Failure

One of the major components of Dodd-Frank was a comprehensive regulatory framework for over-the-counter derivatives. A key feature of this framework is a requirement that many of these derivatives be cleared through central counterparty clearinghouses. Clearinghouses have long played a stabilizing force in many markets, but Dodd-Frank’s regulatory mandate may adversely affect the way they operate. Risk management by clearinghouses and market participants could suffer, and improper risks could find their way into clearinghouses. If a clearinghouse were to fail, there would be tremendous pressure for the government to bail it out in the name of financial stability. Dodd-Frank’s derivatives framework should be reconsidered before it destabilizes the financial system. A better approach would empower market participants to decide whether to use clearinghouses and would allow clearinghouses the regulatory latitude to effectively manage their risks

Defending the Scotland Act 1998 as a ‘third way’ Bill of Rights

This thesis seeks to defend the claim that the Scotland Act 1998 operates as a ‘third way’ Bill of Rights. It argues that ‘third way’ theory is a useful lens through which to view rights protection because it emphasises the importance of different governmental branches having a role in the protection of human rights and it highlights how rights can be protected in better and more democratically-legitimate manner when these institutions interact. The claim that the Scotland Act 1998 adopts the ‘third way’ model might be seen as controversial because unlike ‘core’ ‘third way’ Bills of Rights, the Act does not include a parliamentary override. However, by critically analysing ‘third way’ theory and assessing the design and operation of ‘core’ ‘third way’ Bills, the paper demonstrates that not all ‘third way’ accounts view the existence of a parliamentary override to be essential to the model and that, relatedly, there is little evidence of parliamentary overrides being used to facilitate dialogue in practice. It develops an account of the ‘third way’ model that merges the ‘legislative rights review’ associated with Hiebert with Young’s ‘democratic dialogue’. The Scotland Act 1998 is in conformity with this account because it includes numerous provisions that engender legislative rights review and because a combination a judicial deference and provisions in the Scotland Act that encourage remedial deference allow the legislature and the court to work together to protect rights. Analysis of the operation of Scotland’s model shows that the judicial perspective risks being over-prioritised to the detriment of the legislative perspective. This could lead to Scotland’s model becoming unbalanced. Parliament is in a particularly weak position to fulfil its institutional role under the model. Despite this, opportunities for democratic actors to contribute to the settling of rights-questions remain and these opportunities can be made greater with reformThis thesis seeks to defend the claim that the Scotland Act 1998 operates as a ‘third way’ Bill of Rights. It argues that ‘third way’ theory is a useful lens through which to view rights protection because it emphasises the importance of different governmental branches having a role in the protection of human rights and it highlights how rights can be protected in better and more democratically-legitimate manner when these institutions interact. The claim that the Scotland Act 1998 adopts the ‘third way’ model might be seen as controversial because unlike ‘core’ ‘third way’ Bills of Rights, the Act does not include a parliamentary override. However, by critically analysing ‘third way’ theory and assessing the design and operation of ‘core’ ‘third way’ Bills, the paper demonstrates that not all ‘third way’ accounts view the existence of a parliamentary override to be essential to the model and that, relatedly, there is little evidence of parliamentary overrides being used to facilitate dialogue in practice. It develops an account of the ‘third way’ model that merges the ‘legislative rights review’ associated with Hiebert with Young’s ‘democratic dialogue’. The Scotland Act 1998 is in conformity with this account because it includes numerous provisions that engender legislative rights review and because a combination a judicial deference and provisions in the Scotland Act that encourage remedial deference allow the legislature and the court to work together to protect rights. Analysis of the operation of Scotland’s model shows that the judicial perspective risks being over-prioritised to the detriment of the legislative perspective. This could lead to Scotland’s model becoming unbalanced. Parliament is in a particularly weak position to fulfil its institutional role under the model. Despite this, opportunities for democratic actors to contribute to the settling of rights-questions remain and these opportunities can be made greater with refor

An Approach for Ensuring Robust Support for Location Privacy and Identity Inference Protection

The challenge of preserving a user\u27s location privacy is more important now than ever before with the proliferation of handheld devices and the pervasive use of location based services. To protect location privacy, we must ensure k-anonymity so that the user remains indistinguishable among k-1 other users. There is no better way but to use a location anonymizer (LA) to achieve k-anonymity. However, its knowledge of each user\u27s current location makes it susceptible to be a single-point-of-failure. In this thesis, we propose a formal location privacy framework, termed SafeGrid that can work with or without an LA. In SafeGrid, LA is designed in such a way that it is no longer a single point of failure. In addition, it is resistant to known attacks and most significantly, the cloaking algorithm it employs meets reciprocity condition. Simulation results exhibit its better performance in query processing and cloaking region calculation compared with existing solutions. In this thesis, we also show that satisfying k-anonymity is not enough in preserving privacy. Especially in an environment where a group of colluded service providers collaborate with each other, a user\u27s privacy can be compromised through identity inference attacks. We present a detailed analysis of such attacks on privacy and propose a novel and powerful privacy definition called s-proximity. In addition to building a formal definition for s-proximity, we show that it is practical and it can be incorporated efficiently into existing systems to make them secure