Application of Risk Metrics for Role Mining

Incorporating risk consideration in access control systems has recently become a popular research topic. Related to this is risk awareness which is needed to enable access control in an agile and dynamic way. While risk awareness is probably known for an established access control system, being aware of risk even before the access control system is defined can mean identification of users and permissions that are most likely to lead to dangerous or error-prone situations from an administration point of view. Having this information available during the role engineering phase allows data analysts and role engineers to highlight potentially risky users and permissions likely to be misused. While there has been much recent work on role mining, there has been little consideration of risk during the process. In this thesis, we propose to add risk awareness to role mining. We aggregate the various possible risk factors and categorize them into four general types, which we refer to as risk metrics, in the context of role mining. Next, we propose a framework that incorporates some specific examples of each of these risk metrics before and after role mining. We have implemented a proof-of-concept prototype, a Risk Awareness system for Role Mining (aRARM) based on this framework and applied it to two case studies: a small organizational project and a university database setting. The aRARM prototype is automatically able to detect different types of risk factors when we add different types of noise to this data. The results from the two case studies draw some correlation between the behavior of the different risk factors due to different types and amounts of noise. We also discuss the effect of the different types and amounts of noise on the different role mining algorithms implemented for this study. While the detection rating value for calculating the risk priority number has previously been calculated after role mining, we attempt to find an initial estimate of the detection rating before role mining

How can Sub-Saharan Africa turn the China-India threat into an opportunity

The rise of China and India – the Asian Driver economies – is transforming the global economic, political and social landscape. The challenges posed by their rapid growth and global emergence are increasingly at the centre of strategic debates in the large OECD economies. But what of their impacts on other low income economies in general, and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in particular? Perhaps these giant Asian economies, confronted with their own challenges in overcoming endemic and deeply-rooted poverty, share common problems and have common interests with other low income economies? Or, perhaps more darkly, the overlap of common interests is thin and the rise of the Asian Driver economies poses more of a challenge than an opportunity for SSA and other low income economies

Practicable and Justiciable: Why North Carolina’s Constitutional Vision of Higher Education is Judicially Enforceable

Two hundred and twenty-five years ago, North Carolina established the nation’s oldest public university, choosing as its home a particularly inviting poplar tree in present-day Chapel Hill. Today, UNC-Chapel Hill is part of a sixteen-campus university system known nationwide for its commitment to ensuring that public universities remain financially accessible to the citizens who support them. That commitment is codified in Article IX, Section 9 of the North Carolina Constitution, which requires that tuition at the State’s public universities be “as far as practicable . . . free of expense.” That clause was first introduced in North Carolina’s 1868 Constitution, nearly eighty years after UNC-Chapel Hill opened its doors. Before its imposition, higher education in North Carolina was anything but affordable. After ratification of the 1868 Constitution, tuition at the State’s public universities not only decreased, but remained at a steady, low-price for more than a century: $1450 in 2017 dollars, except for years when inflation spiked. This Note argues that Article IX, Section 9 requires the General Assembly to fund higher education such that tuition does not exceed this amount, adjusted for inflation—a standard leaders in Raleigh have failed to meet for nearly two decades. Should legislators fail to heed this constitutional mandate, students could successfully challenge the legislature’s refusal to adequately fund higher education

Lunar materials processing system integration

The theme of this paper is that governmental resources will not permit the simultaneous development of all viable lunar materials processing (LMP) candidates. Choices will inevitably be made, based on the results of system integration trade studies comparing candidates to each other for high-leverage applications. It is in the best long-term interest of the LMP community to lead the selection process itself, quickly and practically. The paper is in five parts. The first part explains what systems integration means and why the specialized field of LMP needs this activity now. The second part defines the integration context for LMP -- by outlining potential lunar base functions, their interrelationships and constraints. The third part establishes perspective for prioritizing the development of LMP methods, by estimating realistic scope, scale, and timing of lunar operations. The fourth part describes the use of one type of analytical tool for gaining understanding of system interactions: the input/output model. A simple example solved with linear algebra is used to illustrate. The fifth and closing part identifies specific steps needed to refine the current ability to study lunar base system integration. Research specialists have a crucial role to play now in providing the data upon which this refinement process must be based

California Methanol Assessment; Volume II, Technical Report

A joint effort by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering has brought together sponsors from both the public and private sectors for an analysis of the prospects for methanol use as a fuel in California, primarily for the transportation and stationary application sectors. Increasing optimism in 1982 for a slower rise in oil prices and a more realistic understanding of the costs of methanol production have had a negative effect on methanol viability in the near term (before the year 2000). Methanol was determined to have some promise in the transportation sector, but is not forecasted for large-scale use until beyond the year 2000. Similarly, while alternative use of methanol can have a positive effect on air quality (reducing NOx, SOx, and other emissions), a best case estimate is for less than 4% reduction in peak ozone by 2000 at realistic neat methanol vehicle adoption rates. Methanol is not likely to be a viable fuel in the stationary application sector because it cannot compete economically with conventional fuels except in very limited cases. On the production end, it was determined that methanol produced from natural gas will continue to dominate supply options through the year 2000, and the present and planned industry capacity is somewhat in excess of all projected needs. Nonsubsidized coal-based methanol cannot compete with conventional feedstocks using current technology, but coal-based methanol has promise in the long term (after the year 2000), providing that industry is willing to take the technical and market risks and that government agencies will help facilitate the environment for methanol. Given that the prospects for viable major markets (stationary applications and neat fuel in passenger cars) are unlikely in the 1980s and early 1990s, the next steps for methanol are in further experimentation and research of production and utilization technologies, expanded use as an octane enhancer, and selected fleet implementation. In the view of the study, it is not advantageous at this time to establish policies within California that attempt to expand methanol use rapidly as a neat fuel for passenger cars or to induce electric utility use of methanol on a widespread basis

The Judicial Role in Constraining Presidential Non-Enforcement Discretion: The Virtues of an APA Approach

Scholars, lawyers, and, indeed, the public at large increasingly worry about what purposive presidential inaction in enforcing statutory programs means for the rule of law and how such discretionary inaction can fit within a constitutional structure that compels Presidents to take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed. Yet those who have recognized the problem have been hesitant to assign a role for the court in policing the constitutional limits they articulate, mostly because of the strain on judicial capacity that any formulation of Take Care Clause review would cause. In this Article, I argue that courts still can and do constrain presidential nonenforcement discretion, and that they are far better situated to do so when they operate under the rubric of conventional administrative law. Often caricatured as categorically deferential to questions of enforcement discretion, the law of agency inaction is in fact nimble enough to constrain the most egregious instances of executive overreach in nonenforcement, and unique doctrinal features, such as the doctrine of finality, give courts a safety valve to control strains on judicial capacity

The Judicial Role in Constraining Presidential Nonenforcement Discretion: The Virtues of an APA Approach

Scholars, lawyers, and, indeed, the public at large increasingly worry about what purposive presidential inaction in enforcing statutory programs means for the rule of law and how such discretionary inaction can fit within a constitutional structure that compels Presidents to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed. Yet those who have recognized the problem have been hesitant to assign a role for the court in policing the constitutional limits they articulate, mostly because of the strain on judicial capacity that any formulation of Take Care Clause review would cause. In this Article, I argue that courts still can and do constrain presidential nonenforcement discretion, and that they are far better situated to do so when they operate under the rubric of conventional administrative law. Often caricatured as categorically deferential to questions of enforcement discretion, the law of agency inaction is in fact nimble enough to constrain the most egregious instances of executive overreach in nonenforcement, and unique doctrinal features, such as the doctrine of finality, give courts a safety valve to control strains on judicial capacity

The Judicial Role in Constraining Presidential Nonenforcement Discretion: The Virtues of an APA Approach

Scholars, lawyers, and, indeed, the public at large increasingly worry about what purposive presidential inaction in enforcing statutory programs means for the rule of law and how such discretionary inaction can fit within a constitutional structure that compels Presidents to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed. Yet those who have recognized the problem have been hesitant to assign a role for the court in policing the constitutional limits they articulate, mostly because of the strain on judicial capacity that any formulation of Take Care Clause review would cause. In this Article, I argue that courts still can and do constrain presidential nonenforcement discretion, and that they are far better situated to do so when they operate under the rubric of conventional administrative law. Often caricatured as categorically deferential to questions of enforcement discretion, the law of agency inaction is in fact nimble enough to constrain the most egregious instances of executive overreach in nonenforcement, and unique doctrinal features, such as the doctrine of finality, give courts a safety valve to control strains on judicial capacity