Online Station Assignment for Electric Vehicle Battery Swapping

This paper investigates the online station assignment for (commercial) electric vehicles (EVs) that request battery swapping from a central operator, i.e., in the absence of future information a battery swapping service station has to be assigned instantly to each EV upon its request. Based on EVs' locations, the availability of fully-charged batteries at service stations in the system, as well as traffic conditions, the assignment aims to minimize cost to EVs and congestion at service stations. Inspired by a polynomial-time offline solution via a bipartite matching approach, we develop an efficient and implementable online station assignment algorithm that provably achieves the tight (optimal) competitive ratio under mild conditions. Monte Carlo experiments on a real transportation network by Baidu Maps show that our algorithm performs reasonably well on realistic inputs, even with a certain amount of estimation error in parameters

Online Station Assignment for Electric Vehicle Battery Swapping

This paper investigates the online station assignment for (commercial) electric vehicles (EVs) that request battery swapping from a central operator, i.e., in the absence of future information a battery swapping service station has to be assigned instantly to each EV upon its request. Based on EVs' locations, the availability of fully-charged batteries at service stations in the system, as well as traffic conditions, the assignment aims to minimize cost to EVs and congestion at service stations. Inspired by a polynomial-time offline solution via a bipartite matching approach, we develop an efficient and implementable online station assignment algorithm that provably achieves the tight (optimal) competitive ratio under mild conditions. Monte Carlo experiments on a real transportation network by Baidu Maps show that our algorithm performs reasonably well on realistic inputs, even with a certain amount of estimation error in parameters

ConfIs: a tool for privacy and security analysis and conflict resolution for supporting GDPR compliance through privacy-by-design.

Privacy and security requirements, and their potential conflicts, are increasingly having more and more importance. It is becoming a necessary part to be considered, starting from the very early stages of requirements engineering, and in the entire software engineering cycle, for the design of any software system. In the last few years, this has been even more emphasized and required by the law. A relevant example is the case of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which requires organizations, and their software engineers, to enforce and guarantee privacy-by-design to make their platforms compliant with the regulation. In this context, complex activities related to privacy and security requirements elicitation, analysis, mapping and identification of potential conflicts, and the individuation of their resolution, become crucial. In the literature, there is not available a comprehensive requirement engineering oriented tool for supporting the requirements analyst. In this paper, we propose ConfIs, a tool for supporting the analyst in performing a process covering these phases in a systematic and interactive way. We present ConfIs and its process with a realistic example from DEFeND, an EU project aiming at supporting organizations in achieving GDPR compliance. In this context, we evaluated ConfIs by involving privacy/security requirements experts, which recognized our tool and method as supportive, concerning these complex activities

Self-Sovereign Identity and the Decentralized, Consent-Based Model

The centralized third-party authentication model for digital identity validation is obsolete in light of newer and more secure means of ensuring accurate digital identification. Governments, private organizations, and citizens should be encouraged to explore the means by which they can maximize the latest in digital developments to protect themselves and their online identities. California should begin to implement the precepts of the decentralized Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) model, which is superior to its predecessor in its simplicity, as it requires only three things to validate a digital identity: (1) a blockchain which has the information necessary to satisfy the consensus algorithm ensuring adequate replication across the network nodes; (2) verifiable credentials; and (3) decentralized identifiers. Because this system is predicated on a trustless Proof of Work (PoW) model, at present, blockchains are practically immutable, thus making it impossible to falsify or forge information on them. The use of cryptographic hash functions ensures that the security of each block of data is independently secured from one another, and ultimately known only to the controller and owner of the information: the user. California should join other state and national governments in the research and implementation of SSI-compliant models of governance to better protect and support the needs of its citizenry in an increasingly digitized world

Criminal Liabilities of Boko Haram in Nigeria

One major problem that has posed a great threat to the Nigerian Nation is Boko Haram or rather the Boko Haram militant group. What this paper intends to do is to analyze the criminal liabilities of the Boko Haram militant group in Nigeria in both domestic and international law. I see this paper primarily as timely because a lot has been said about Boko Haram, in Nigeria, but yet there is much we still do not know about Boko Haram, its criminal liabilities, origin structure, size and method of operation still remains a mirage and a mystery. This dissertation will start with an introduction of the term Boko Haram and the various definitions of terrorism. The subsequent chapter will in detail attempt the Impact of the Boko Haram insurgency as a threat to national security--This chapter would be more of revelations surrounding the Boko Haramites conflict, and its inclinations towards terrorism. Chapter three intends to look at the fascination towards Boko Haram, while chapter five would discuss the Applicable International and Domestic laws against Boko Haram. At the conclusion in chapter six, suggestions and recommendations will be made on how to eradicate the Boko Haram terrorist group as well as enforcing actions against the Boko Haramites to determine their criminal liability or rather their culpability. This dissertation would remain relevant going by the fact that the stability of the Nigerian Nation has been affected drastically by the Boko Haram conflict and I am confident that this work of mine could be a source of inspiration for those in authority as well as policy makers to adequately tackle this horrific crime

Strategic Subdelegation

Appointed leaders of administrative agencies routinely record subdelegations of governmental authority to civil servants. That appointees willingly cede authority in this way presents a puzzle, at least at first glance: Why do these appointees assign their power to civil servants insulated by merit protection laws, that is, to employees over whom they have limited control? This article develops and tests a theory to explain this behavior. Using original data on appointee-to-civil servant delegations and a measure of the ideological distance between these two groups of actors, we show that appointees are more willing to vest power in civil servants when the two groups are more closely aligned. They are particularly likely to do so in the last months of a presidential administration, prior to a transition to a new set of appointees from a different party. Essentially, appointees strategically devolve authority to ideologically similar civil servants to entrench their views in the face of oppositional future presidential administrations. Further, judicial doctrine and interest-group politics can make existing subdelegations difficult to reverse. This stickiness adds to the strategic value of subdelegations as a means of projecting preferences into future administrations. These findings raise important implications for administrative law and governance. One conventional wisdom on intra-agency dynamics considers appointees and civil servants as rivals. Relatedly, studies of personnel practices focus on strategies to empower appointees and sideline civil servants. This article, by contrast, shows how appointees and civil servants can act as strategic partners under certain conditions. At a time when leading political figures propose fundamental changes to the civil service, our findings call for a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics between political appointees and civil servants

Analysis of Autonomous Vehicle Policies

The rapid development and adoption of connected and autonomous vehicles will transform the U.S. transportation system over the next 30 years. Although the widespread use of fully connected and autonomous vehicles is still several years away, it is nonetheless critical that legislators, policymakers, and regulators understand how the presence of these vehicles will restructure the operation of roadway networks. Without a doubt, lawmakers and policymakers will need to develop new laws — and revise existing ones — to account for the presence of connected and autonomous vehicles. This report provides an overview of connected and autonomous vehicles — their positives and negatives, how quickly consumers may adopt them, and strategies state departments of transportation can use to streamline their deployment — before examining the recent efforts at the federal and state level to establish laws and regulations that will smooth the transition for connected and autonomous vehicles. Federal agencies, such as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, have issued guidance for manufacturers and state and local governments. Meanwhile, numerous states have enacted or proposed legislation to deal with connected and autonomous vehicles. The content of these statutes varies among states, however, shared areas of concern include defining what constitutes an autonomous vehicle, establishing basic protocols for testing autonomous vehicles on public roadways, specifying under what circumstances a manufacturer is liable for crashes, and setting guidelines for operating autonomous vehicles. Looking toward the Commonwealth, a review of the Kentucky Revised Statutes and Kentucky Administrative Regulations identifies current policies and regulations that may apply to connected and autonomous vehicles. Policymakers and legislators will likely have to grapple with issues pertaining to licensing, registration, cell phone usage, and the definition of vehicle operators in the context of autonomous vehicles. Given that the proliferation of connected and autonomous vehicles will accelerate over the next 10-15 years, Kentucky will benefit if these issues are addressed and resolved in a timely manner

NASA patent abstracts bibliography: A continuing bibliography. Section 1: Abstracts (supplement 11)

This continuing bibliography lists index for 3256 patents and patent applications introduced into the NASA scientific and technical informations system from January 1977 through June 1977. The index section contains fix indexes: subject, inventor, source, number, and accession number

The exokernel operating system architecture

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1999.Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-120).This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.On traditional operating systems only trusted software such as privileged servers or the kernel can manage resources. This thesis proposes a new approach, the exokernel architecture, which makes resource management unprivileged but safe by separating management from protection: an exokernel protects resources, while untrusted application-level software manages them. As a result, in an exokernel system, untrusted software (e.g., library operating systems) can implement abstractions such as virtual memory, file systems, and networking. Themain thrusts of this thesis are: (1) how to build an exokernel system; (2) whether it is possible to build a real one; and (3) whether doing so is a good idea. Our results, drawn from two exokernel systems [25, 48], show that the approach yields dramatic benefits. For example, Xok, an exokernel, runs a web server an order of magnitude faster than the closest equivalent on the same hardware, common unaltered Unix applications up to three times faster, and improves global system performance up to a factor of five. The thesis also discusses some of the new techniques we have used to remove the overhead of protection. Themost unusual technique, untrusted deterministic functions, enables an exokernel to verify that applications correctly track the resources they own, eliminating the need for it to do so. Additionally, the thesis reflects on the subtle issues in using downloaded code for extensibility and the sometimes painful lessons learned in building three exokernel-based systems.by Dawson R. Engler.Ph.D

On Cryptographic Protocols Employing Asymmetric Pairings -- The Role of Ψ\Psi Revisited

Asymmetric pairings $e : \mathbb{G}_1 \times \mathbb{G}_2 \rightarrow \mathbb{G}_T$ for which an efficiently-computable isomorphism $\psi : \mathbb{G}_2 \rightarrow \mathbb{G}_1$ is known are called Type 2 pairings; if such an isomorphism $\psi$ is not known then $e$ is called a Type 3 pairing. Many cryptographic protocols in the asymmetric setting rely on the existence of $\psi$ for their security reduction while some use it in the protocol itself. For these reasons, it is believed that some of these protocols cannot be implemented with Type 3 pairings, while for some the security reductions either cannot be transformed to the Type 3 setting or else require a stronger complexity assumption. Contrary to these widely held beliefs, we argue that Type 2 pairings are merely inefficient implementations of Type 3 pairings, and appear to offer no benefit for protocols based on asymmetric pairings from the point of view of functionality, security, and performance