Software (re)modularization: Fight against the structure erosion and migration preparation

Software systems, and in particular, Object-Oriented sys- tems are models of the real world that manipulate representa- tions of its entities through models of its processes. The real world is not static: new laws are created, concurrents offer new functionalities, users have renewed expectation toward what a computer should offer them, memory constraints are added, etc. As a result, software systems must be continuously updated or face the risk of becoming gradually out-dated and irrelevant [34]. In the meantime, details and multiple abstraction levels result in a high level of com- plexity, and completely analyzing real software systems is impractical. For example, the Windows operating system consists of more than 60 millions lines of code (500,000 pages printed double-face, about 16 times the Encyclopedia Universalis). Maintaining such large applications is a trade- off between having to change a model that nobody can understand in details and limiting the impact of possible changes. Beyond maintenance, a good structure gives to the software systems good qualities for migration towards modern paradigms as web services or components, and the problem of architecture extraction is very close to the classical remodularization problem

Waiting as a site of subject formation: examining collective prayers by Ethiopian asylum seekers in Germany. L’attente en tant que site de formation sur le sujet : étude des prièrescollectives par les demandeurs d’asile éthiopiens en Allemagne

In this article I look at collective payers by Ethiopian asylum seekers to explore how religious narratives are mobilized to deal with temporal angst in the context of waiting. I posit that waiting is a site of multifaceted struggles in which subjectivities are constituted, in response to both the violence waiting imposes and the anticipated freedom it carries with it. Asylum seekers confront life in waiting in various ways until they attain what they wait for and ‘settle’ in the host country. To settle is imagined as living in Europe as independent and self-reliant workers who could generate their own income which is contingent on waiting for the acceptance of their applications for asylum. Whether people attain what they wait for or not, their subjectivities are formed through a certain idea of themselves, an understanding of their situation and their practices, all of which are located within histories and structures of power relations. My analysis draws on ethnographic data generated from fieldwork conducted in 2016–2017 among Oromo asylum seekers in the city of Nuremberg, Germany. Dans cet article je regarde les prières collectives des demandeurs d’asile éthiopiens pour explorer en quoi les récits religieux sont mobilisés pour traiter l’angoisse temporelle dans le contexte de l’attente. J’avance que l’attente est un lieu de luttes à multiples facettes dans lesquelles les subjectivités sont constituées, en réponse aussi bien à la violence imposée par l’attente et l’anticipation de liberté qu’elle apporte. Les demandeurs d’asile font face à la vie en attendant de différentes façons jusqu’à ce qu’ils atteignent ce qu’ils attendent et ‘s’installent’ dans le pays d’accueil. L’installation est imaginé comme vivre en Europe en tant que travailleur indépendant et autonome pouvant générer leur propre revenu ce qui dépend de l’attente pour l’acceptation de leurs demandes d’asile. Que les personnes obtiennent ou non ce pour quoi elles attendant, leurs subjectivités sont formées à travers une certaine idée qu’elles ont d’elles-mêmes, la compréhension qu’elles ont de leur situation et de leurs pratiques, choses qui se situent toutes au cœur d’histoires et de structures de relations de pouvoir. Mon analyse s’appuie sur des données ethnographiques générées par un travail sur le terrain mené en 2016–2017 parmi les demandeurs d’asile Oromo dans la ville de Nuremberg, en Allemagne

Extending the Abstract Data Model.

The Abstract Data Model (ADM) was developed by Sanderson [19] to model and predict semantic loss in data translation between computer languages. In this work, the ADM was applied to eight languages that were not considered as part of the original work. Some of the languages were found to support semantic features, such as the restriction semantics for inheritance found in languages like XML Schemas and Java, which could not be represented in the ADM. A proposal was made to extend the ADM to support these semantic features, and the requirements and implications of implementing that proposal were considered

Secure Virtualization and Multicore Platforms State-of-the-Art report

SVaM

A distributed agent architecture for real-time knowledge-based systems: Real-time expert systems project, phase 1

We propose a distributed agent architecture (DAA) that can support a variety of paradigms based on both traditional real-time computing and artificial intelligence. DAA consists of distributed agents that are classified into two categories: reactive and cognitive. Reactive agents can be implemented directly in Ada to meet hard real-time requirements and be deployed on on-board embedded processors. A traditional real-time computing methodology under consideration is the rate monotonic theory that can guarantee schedulability based on analytical methods. AI techniques under consideration for reactive agents are approximate or anytime reasoning that can be implemented using Bayesian belief networks as in Guardian. Cognitive agents are traditional expert systems that can be implemented in ART-Ada to meet soft real-time requirements. During the initial design of cognitive agents, it is critical to consider the migration path that would allow initial deployment on ground-based workstations with eventual deployment on on-board processors. ART-Ada technology enables this migration while Lisp-based technologies make it difficult if not impossible. In addition to reactive and cognitive agents, a meta-level agent would be needed to coordinate multiple agents and to provide meta-level control

Object migration in temporal object-oriented databases

The paper presents T-ORM (Temporal Objects with Roles Model), an object-oriented data model based on the concepts of class and role. In order to represent the evolution of real-world entities, T-ORM allows objects to change state, roles and class in their lifetime. In particular, it handles structural and behavioral changes that occur in objects when they migrate from a given class to another. First, the paper introduces the basic features of the T-ORM data model, emphasizing those related to object migration. Then, it presents the query and manipulation languages associated with T-ORM, focusing on the treatment of the temporal aspects of object evolution

A Generational Divide? Coping With Ethnic Prejudice and Inequality Among Romanian Roma Transnational Returnees

Roma people are likely Europe’s most discriminated and marginalized minority. In the past years, increasing attention has been paid to their migration to Western Europe and their limited social mobility in their countries of destination. Our article focuses on the "post‐return" experiences of Roma and the changes generated by return migration in their communities of origin, a topic largely neglected so far. We build on recent debates around post‐return positionality, asking how adult and old Roma returnees experience return. We thus contribute to the growing literature on return migration and lifecourse that distinguishes between the return migration of children and youth, that of adults, and that of older migrants. Focusing on Roma returnees, we employ an understanding of migration not just as a means of generating resources, but also as a learning process where the Roma population acquires new ideas and a sense of agency and dignity. Informed by long‐term fieldwork in ethnically mixed localities in Romania (including participant observation and 76 semi‐structured interviews), we inquire into the ethnic relations and negotiations between Roma and non‐Roma populations. Migration results in a weakening of the economic dependency of the Roma on the non‐Roma. In this new context, which is still marred by ethnic prejudice and inequality, we analysed how local interethnic relations were reshaped by the returned Roma’s new consumption practices, new modes of communication, and new claims for equality. While adult Roma tend to demand equality and decent treatment, setting in motion a process of ethnic change, older returned Roma tend to maintain more submissive practices

Open archival information systems for database preservation

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Informática e Computação. Universidade do Porto. Faculdade de Engenharia. 201

A novel architecture to virtualise a hardware-bound trusted platform module

Security and trust are particularly relevant in modern softwarised infrastructures, such as cloud environments, as applications are deployed on platforms owned by third parties, are publicly accessible on the Internet and can share the hardware with other tenants. Traditionally, operating systems and applications have leveraged hardware tamper-proof chips, such as the Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs) to implement security workflows, such as remote attestation, and to protect sensitive data against software attacks. This approach does not easily translate to the cloud environment, wherein the isolation provided by the hypervisor makes it impractical to leverage the hardware root of trust in the virtual domains. Moreover, the scalability needs of the cloud often collide with the scarce hardware resources and inherent limitations of TPMs. For this reason, existing implementations of virtual TPMs (vTPMs) are based on TPM emulators. Although more flexible and scalable, this approach is less secure. In fact, each vTPM is vulnerable to software attacks both at the virtualised and hypervisor levels. In this work, we propose a novel design for vTPMs that provides a binding to an underlying physical TPM; the new design, akin to a virtualisation extension for TPMs, extends the latest TPM 2.0 specification. We minimise the number of required additions to the TPM data structures and commands so that they do not require a new, non-backwards compatible version of the specification. Moreover, we support migration of vTPMs among TPM-equipped hosts, as this is considered a key feature in a highly virtualised environment. Finally, we propose a flexible approach to vTPM object creation that protects vTPM secrets either in hardware or software, depending on the required level of assurance