A First Practical Fully Homomorphic Crypto-Processor Design: The Secret Computer is Nearly Here

Following a sequence of hardware designs for a fully homomorphic crypto-processor - a general purpose processor that natively runs encrypted machine code on encrypted data in registers and memory, resulting in encrypted machine states - proposed by the authors in 2014, we discuss a working prototype of the first of those, a so-called `pseudo-homomorphic' design. This processor is in principle safe against physical or software-based attacks by the owner/operator of the processor on user processes running in it. The processor is intended as a more secure option for those emerging computing paradigms that require trust to be placed in computations carried out in remote locations or overseen by untrusted operators. The prototype has a single-pipeline superscalar architecture that runs OpenRISC standard machine code in two distinct modes. The processor runs in the encrypted mode (the unprivileged, `user' mode, with a long pipeline) at 60-70% of the speed in the unencrypted mode (the privileged, `supervisor' mode, with a short pipeline), emitting a completed encrypted instruction every 1.67-1.8 cycles on average in real trials.Comment: 6 pages, draf

Empirical Patterns in Google Scholar Citation Counts

Scholarly impact may be metricized using an author's total number of citations as a stand-in for real worth, but this measure varies in applicability between disciplines. The detail of the number of citations per publication is nowadays mapped in much more detail on the Web, exposing certain empirical patterns. This paper explores those patterns, using the citation data from Google Scholar for a number of authors.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Cyberpatterns 201

A Solidification Phenomenon in Random Packings

We prove that uniformly random packings of copies of a certain simply-connected figure in the plane exhibit global connectedness at all sufficiently high densities, but not at low densities

Conflict and consensus in industry: the analysis of control in a steel plant

This study is concerned with the application of key perspectives in industrial sociology to the problem of the social control of work in industrial organisations, a problem central to many issues affecting the quality of industrial relations in our society. It is argued that the achievement of effective plant systems of social control depends upon the compatibility of decisions taken by management and trade unions with both the system requirements of industrial organisations and the social requirements of employees whose consent to these decisions is crucial. In the first part of the work an attempt has been made to demonstrate how a balanced treatment of systems, order, conflict and social action perspectives in industrial sociology can be used in the consideration of what constitutes the concept of control. A model of control is outlined which emphasises the necessity of exploring the nature of managerial and labour values and decisions as these define the scope and content of the control process over a period of time. The model also illustrates the sensitivity of these values and decisions to system and social influences surrounding the organisation and its participants, and which set constraints within which the control process must move if it is to remain stable. Aspects of the model are applied to the analysis of control in an integrated steel plant. This analysis constitutes the second part of the thesis. The emphasis is upon the determinants of stable control, but the model is also applied to indicate the sources of instability and strain. Ultimately the thesis draws together within one framework concepts derived from the separate but interrelated analytical areas of systems and social integration. In this way, it is envisaged that the work as a whole makes some contribution to a more systematic study of social problems in the world of work

Participatory healthcare service design and innovation

This paper describes the use of Experience Based Design (EBD), a participatory methodology for healthcare service design, to improve the outpatient service for older people at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals. The challenges in moving from stories to designing improvements, co-designing for wicked problems, and the effects of participants' limited scopes of action are discussed. It concludes by proposing that such problems are common to participatory service design in large institutions and recommends that future versions of EBD incorporate more tools to promote divergent thinking

The management of clients’ strategic objectives using the JBCC principal building agreement: a case study

Meeting the strategic objectives of construction clients is paramount in construction procurement for the project to be regarded as successful by the client. It is contended that the choice of contractual arrangement can act as a barrier to achieving these objectives. Through an analysis of the South African JBCC Principal Building Agreement, the authors explore how contractual arrangements can be a limitation to achieving the client’sconstruction strategic objectives. The research methodology adopted for the research comprises a desktop analysis of the JBCC Principal BuildingAgreement together with the analysis of a single case study to explore how the JBCC Principal Building Agreement addresses the client’s strategicobjectives in theory and in practice. The findings indicate that the Agreement neither makes provision to deal with the client’s strategic objectives nor are they met by its philosophy, structure, or parameters. It is concluded that construction clients who use the Agreement or its equivalent for the benefit of its convenience and familiarity should consider its adequacy to manage strategic objectives within the wider sense of the investment and business case of the construction project.&nbsp