Functional encryption based approaches for practical privacy-preserving machine learning

Machine learning (ML) is increasingly being used in a wide variety of application domains. However, deploying ML solutions poses a significant challenge because of increasing privacy concerns, and requirements imposed by privacy-related regulations. To tackle serious privacy concerns in ML-based applications, significant recent research efforts have focused on developing privacy-preserving ML (PPML) approaches by integrating into ML pipeline existing anonymization mechanisms or emerging privacy protection approaches such as differential privacy, secure computation, and other architectural frameworks. While promising, existing secure computation based approaches, however, have significant computational efficiency issues and hence, are not practical. In this dissertation, we address several challenges related to PPML and propose practical secure computation based approaches to solve them. We consider both two-tier cloud-based and three-tier hybrid cloud-edge based PPML architectures and address both emerging deep learning models and federated learning approaches. The proposed approaches enable us to outsource data or update a locally trained model in a privacy-preserving manner by employing computation over encrypted datasets or local models. Our proposed secure computation solutions are based on functional encryption (FE) techniques. Evaluation of the proposed approaches shows that they are efficient and more practical than existing approaches, and provide strong privacy guarantees. We also address issues related to the trustworthiness of various entities within the proposed PPML infrastructures. This includes a third-party authority (TPA) which plays a critical role in the proposed FE-based PPML solutions, and cloud service providers. To ensure that such entities can be trusted, we propose a transparency and accountability framework using blockchain. We show that the proposed transparency framework is effective and guarantees security properties. Experimental evaluation shows that the proposed framework is efficient

Take your MEDS: Digital Signatures from Matrix Code Equivalence

In this paper, we show how to use the Matrix Code Equivalence (MCE) problem as a new basis to construct signature schemes. This extends previous work on using isomorphism problems for signature schemes, a trend that has recently emerged in post-quantum cryptography. Our new formulation leverages a more general problem and allows for smaller data sizes, achieving competitive performance and great flexibility. Using MCE, we construct a zero-knowledge protocol which we turn into a signature scheme named Matrix Equivalence Digital Signature (MEDS). We provide an initial choice of parameters for MEDS, tailored to NIST\u27s Category 1 security level, yielding public keys as small as 2.8 kB and signatures ranging from 18 kB to just around 6.5 kB, along with a reference implementation in C

Seismic Array Studies of Antarctica and Madagascar

The scope of this dissertation is broad, involving seismic array studies from Antarctica and Madagascar, and includes aspects of glaciology and oceanography as well as solid Earth geophysics. Chapter 2 focuses on the study of stickslip motion of the Whillans Ice Stream, West Antarctica. It includes methods combining seismic array and GPS time series, from ice stream based-sensors, to determine source dynamics in the framework of an earthquake source. The source characteristics are then analyzed to explain far-field seismic observations of ice stream- sourced surface waves detected throughout West Antarctica. Locations of asperities, or sticky- spots, that cause the Whillans Ice Stream to accelerate and generate seismic energy are found. Some of these asperities are in close proximity to the grounding line, where properties of the bed are altered through tidal flexure of the ice shelf and the influx of water into the subglacial till. Chapter 3 explores ocean generated microseismic noise that is also detected on these ice stream seismometers, with the geometry of the array providing excellent azimuthal resolution. Stacked cross-correlations of seismograms enhance microseismic energy generated by the Southern Ocean in the form of both surface and body waves. The frequency spectra of these waves is analyzed as well as applying seismic array techniques, such as beamforming. Each frequency band provides different information on the source regions of that particular microseism suggesting multiple source mechanisms. Microseisms are modeled using ocean state hindcasts to compare with observations and identify microseism source regions and improve understanding of the effect of sea ice. It is shown that single-frequency microseisms are heavily damped by the presence of sea ice over the continental shelf. Long-period double frequency microseisms are observed and modeled to be sourced in the deep ocean. Short-period double frequency microseisms are also influenced by sea ice seasonality; however, this chapter provides evidence that shows that a component of this band may be sourced in the deep ocean. The focus of Chapter 4 moves away from Antarctica, to Madagascar and the analysis of the first island-wide deployment of broadband seismometers. The priorities of this project are to better understand the crustal and upper mantle structure of Madagascar, and to assess the intraplate volcanism on the island from a seismological point of view for the first time. This chapter presents a surface wave tomography study producing the first shear velocity model of the crust and upper mantle of the island. A range of commonly employed surface wave methods is used to calculate phase velocities across the island. These are then amalgamated and inverted for shear velocity in the crust and the upper mantle. Low velocity regions are shown to extend to upper mantle depths beneath the center and north of the island above which lie intraplate volcanic provinces. This suggests that the mantle lithosphere has been significantly thinned, explaining the relatively high topography observed for a fragment of continental crust

A reluctant pacifist: Thomas Merton and the Cold War Letters, October 1961 – April 1962

Thomas Merton believed nuclear war was the single greatest threat facing humanity, whereas American Catholic commentators considered that nuclear war was winnable or at least survivable. What made him a reluctant pacifist was the tensions he faced between speaking frankly without being partisan. Merton had an intellectual duty to his readers to both fairly and accurately set out his position on nuclear pacifism. In order to evaluate whether he did this with integrity as a writer it is necessary to set his declared motivations against his actions and to evaluate what the tensions between his views and his actions reveal about him as a writer. Merton’s pacifism is evaluated through archive research at the Thomas Merton Center, Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky, and supported by a substantial secondary literature. Research for this dissertation highlights previously unacknowledged associations between Merton’s Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky and radical pacifism of the Catholic Worker movement. Merton’s pacifism is evaluated in five chapters through examination of his character, cloistered life, and correspondences within the institutional context of Merton’s tussles with his superiors and censors in reaction to the resumption of atmospheric nuclear testing by the Soviet Union in September 1961 and the U.S. in April 1962. He represented himself through correspondence as being a writer who was committed to a central American Catholic ideal that America was good for Catholicism and Catholicism could save America. He was committed to a consistent ethics of life. The few mainstream readers who engaged with Merton’s ideas were shocked and confused that he reduced political reality to symbols of moralism that rejected all war, not just nuclear war. The broader significance of Merton’s pacifist writing was as a bellwether of a broader cultural shift in American Catholic life from American Catholic triumphalism to prudential judgement in the responsible exercise of the democratic life

Environmental impact analysis : the identification of secondary impacts

Includes bibliographical references.The need for a preliminary environmental impact analysis approach, able to identify secondary impacts, has been revealed by a broad literary review. Therefore, the component interaction technique has been developed which is able to structure a preliminary investigation of secondary impacts. The technique is based on a component interaction matrix. The environment is modelled as a list of environmental components, and direct dependencies between these components are then recorded. Computerized matrix powering procedures are able to structure the data to facilitate the investigation of the secondary impact potential in the system. By virtue of its construction, the technique ensures that a preliminary analysis of impact is based on a comprehensive and structured consideration of the environment. The procedure can also be used to substantiate and control the subjective content of an impact study. These two attributes of the technique support its application in conjunction with other methods of impact analysis. Various extensions to the technique have also been considered

1969-1970 Catalog

This catalog lists available courses for the 1969-1970 term. It also lists trustees, officers, faculty, scholarships, and other information about the College of the Holy Cross.https://crossworks.holycross.edu/course_catalog/1095/thumbnail.jp

The Relationship between a Theological Understanding of Marital Commitment and a Juridical Articulation of Marital Consent in Sacramental Marriages in the United States

Sacramental marriage is an essential social, public, ecclesial, and theological good, yet its influence in the United States is threatened by a divorce rate comparable to the U.S. population in general, an explosive increase in cohabitation, and a declining marriage rate. The underlying assumption of this dissertation is that commitment and consent, more thoroughly understood and consistently lived, are essential to lifelong, faithful, and life-giving marriage that symbolizes and makes present Christ\u27s indissoluble love for the church. Through an adapted use of Don Browning\u27s fundamental practical theological method, this study begins with practical concerns regarding concrete marital and family practices in the United States and ends with practical means and strategies related to the pastoral care of sacramental marriages and all those in the stages of marriage preparation, aftercare, and sadly, family fragmentation. Within this theological method, canon law is considered an ecclesial science distinct from theology yet organically united to it in the church. Relying primarily on Ladislas Örsy\u27s theory of the relationship between theology and canon law, I affirm that theology identifies, explains, and evaluates the values or goods of marriage through the movements of biblical, historical, systematic, and moral theology, whereas canon law produces norms, processes, and structures for the protection and promotion of those goods. In this view, theology judges canon law to determine the fittingness of canonical norms and structures for theological realities. Furthermore, canon law is a ministry that is both pastoral and juridical to ensure freedom and good order within the church. Canon law is part of the overall care of the faithful given that justice is the minimum demand of love. Consent creates marriage; therefore, an integral and in-depth understanding of consent in canon law in light of a theology of commitment is important in helping the church to appropriate the human and theological values of marriage

Wiser Than Despair: The Evolution of Ideas in the Relationship of Music and the Christian Church

The fact that human beings want to make music, as well as all other forms of art, is a given of human existence. Artistic expressions, however, are not isolated or autonomous. They are conditioned, among other things, by social and cultural factors, and these factors have a powerful influence in shaping any art form. There is no more compelling example of a culture\u27s power to condition art than the evolution of European art music during the Middle Ages under the influence of the Christian church and its theological stance with regard to the arts. The church\u27s ideas about the purpose and function of music were the deciding factors in determining the directions that musical composition took during the Middle Ages. That direction has in turn helped determine not only modern compositional and performance practices, but indeed the very notion of what constitutes quality and greatness in Western art music. This book traces the interaction of philosophical and theological ideas and attitudes with the conception and practice of music, beginning with the earliest ideas about music and the foundations laid by the ancient Greek philosophical systems, and continuing through the transformation of ideas and attitudes about music that happened from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. The book\u27s purpose is to explore--by means of many excerpts from primary sources, selected quotations from modern authors, and commentary on both--a highly complex and elusive matter: why the church was able to contribute so generously to music (and to the other arts, as well) from its earliest days up through the eighteenth century, and why it has suffered since that time from a creeping artistic paralysis: The opening chapters may be understood as a contribution to a more complete conception of the history and philosophy of music up through the eighteenth century. The final chapters are of greater interest to those who are specifically concerned with church music, especially as it has been conceived and practiced since the eighteenth century. I have presumed that the reader is familiar with the history of European art music and, within that, with the history of music in the service of the church

Wiser Than Despair: The Evolution of Ideas in the Relationship of Music and the Christian Church

The fact that human beings want to make music, as well as all other forms of art, is a given of human existence. Artistic expressions, however, are not isolated or autonomous. They are conditioned, among other things, by social and cultural factors, and these factors have a powerful influence in shaping any art form. There is no more compelling example of a culture\u27s power to condition art than the evolution of European art music during the Middle Ages under the influence of the Christian church and its theological stance with regard to the arts. The church\u27s ideas about the purpose and function of music were the deciding factors in determining the directions that musical composition took during the Middle Ages. That direction has in turn helped determine not only modern compositional and performance practices, but indeed the very notion of what constitutes quality and greatness in Western art music. This book traces the interaction of philosophical and theological ideas and attitudes with the conception and practice of music, beginning with the earliest ideas about music and the foundations laid by the ancient Greek philosophical systems, and continuing through the transformation of ideas and attitudes about music that happened from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. The book\u27s purpose is to explore--by means of many excerpts from primary sources, selected quotations from modern authors, and commentary on both--a highly complex and elusive matter: why the church was able to contribute so generously to music (and to the other arts, as well) from its earliest days up through the eighteenth century, and why it has suffered since that time from a creeping artistic paralysis: The opening chapters may be understood as a contribution to a more complete conception of the history and philosophy of music up through the eighteenth century. The final chapters are of greater interest to those who are specifically concerned with church music, especially as it has been conceived and practiced since the eighteenth century. I have presumed that the reader is familiar with the history of European art music and, within that, with the history of music in the service of the church