294 research outputs found
Software Protection
A computer system's security can be compromised in many ways a denial-of-service attack can make a server inoperable, a worm can destroy a user's private data, or an eavesdrop per can reap financial rewards by inserting himself in the communication link between a customer and her bank through a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack. What all these scenarios have in common is that the adversary is an untrusted entity that attacks a system from the outside-we assume that the computers under attack are operated by benign and trusted users. But if we remove this assumption, if we allow anyone operating a computer system- from system administrators down to ordinary users-to compromise that system's security, we find ourselves in a scenario that has received comparatively little attention. Methods for protecting against MATE attacks are variously known as anti-tamper techniques, digital asset protection, or, more
The role of concurrency in an evolutionary view of programming abstractions
In this paper we examine how concurrency has been embodied in mainstream
programming languages. In particular, we rely on the evolutionary talking
borrowed from biology to discuss major historical landmarks and crucial
concepts that shaped the development of programming languages. We examine the
general development process, occasionally deepening into some language, trying
to uncover evolutionary lineages related to specific programming traits. We
mainly focus on concurrency, discussing the different abstraction levels
involved in present-day concurrent programming and emphasizing the fact that
they correspond to different levels of explanation. We then comment on the role
of theoretical research on the quest for suitable programming abstractions,
recalling the importance of changing the working framework and the way of
looking every so often. This paper is not meant to be a survey of modern
mainstream programming languages: it would be very incomplete in that sense. It
aims instead at pointing out a number of remarks and connect them under an
evolutionary perspective, in order to grasp a unifying, but not simplistic,
view of the programming languages development process
An Open Framework for Extensible Multi-Stage Bioinformatics Software
In research labs, there is often a need to customise software at every step
in a given bioinformatics workflow, but traditionally it has been difficult to
obtain both a high degree of customisability and good performance.
Performance-sensitive tools are often highly monolithic, which can make
research difficult. We present a novel set of software development principles
and a bioinformatics framework, Friedrich, which is currently in early
development. Friedrich applications support both early stage experimentation
and late stage batch processing, since they simultaneously allow for good
performance and a high degree of flexibility and customisability. These
benefits are obtained in large part by basing Friedrich on the multiparadigm
programming language Scala. We present a case study in the form of a basic
genome assembler and its extension with new functionality. Our architecture has
the potential to greatly increase the overall productivity of software
developers and researchers in bioinformatics.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, to appear in proceedings of PRIB 201
Multi-mass solvers for lattice QCD on GPUs
Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) are more and more frequently used for
lattice QCD calculations. Lattice studies often require computing the quark
propagators for several masses. These systems can be solved using multi-shift
inverters but these algorithms are memory intensive which limits the size of
the problem that can be solved using GPUs. In this paper, we show how to
efficiently use a memory-lean single-mass inverter to solve multi-mass
problems. We focus on the BiCGstab algorithm for Wilson fermions and show that
the single-mass inverter not only requires less memory but also outperforms the
multi-shift variant by a factor of two.Comment: 27 pages, 6 figures, 3 Table
The challenge of ethical leadership university courses: preparing leaders for an uncertain, turbulent and divert future
This paper discusses the necessity of introducing Ethical Leadership in university leadership preparation courses and provides an example of designing and implementing such a course. Emphasis is given on the teaching methodology of the course which is based on experiential learning, a combination of action and case study research approaches and an intermingling of open and traditional teaching practices. The structure of the proposed course draws upon extensive relevant literature review and attempts to incorporate the main strands of adult education. A students’ self-evaluating tool is also included as a means to evidence the course participants’ satisfaction as well as to help feedback and further enquiry. The rationale behind this course proposal is that, instead of trying to change or eradicate misappropriate leadership concepts and values at a later age, it is much better to care for their good formation and foundation as earlier as possible, during [head]teacher initial formation [at university level]. Keywords: ethical Leadership; university course; experiential learning; school leaders
A Communication Model to Integrate the Request-Response and the Publish-Subscribe Paradigms into Ubiquitous Systems
The Request-Response (RR) paradigm is widely used in ubiquitous systems to exchange information in a secure, reliable and timely manner. Nonetheless, there is also an emerging need for adopting the Publish-Subscribe (PubSub) paradigm in this kind of systems, due to the advantages that this paradigm offers in supporting mobility by means of asynchronous, non-blocking and one-to-many message distribution semantics for event notification. This paper analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of both the RR and PubSub paradigms to support communications in ubiquitous systems and proposes an abstract communication model in order to enable their seamless integration. Thus, developers will be focused on communication semantics and the required quality properties, rather than be concerned about specific communication mechanisms. The aim is to provide developers with abstractions intended to decrease the complexity of integrating different communication paradigms commonly needed in ubiquitous systems. The proposal has been applied to implement a middleware and a real home automation system to show its applicability and benefits.This research work is funded by the Project P10-TIC-6600 granted by the Andalusian Regional
Government, and the Project 20F2/36 granted by CEI-BioTIC Granada. This work has also been partially
supported by the “Contrato-Programa, Facultad de Educacin y Humanidades de Ceuta 2010-2012” of the
University of Granada
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