Issues Affecting Security Design Pattern Engineering

Security Design Patterns present the tried and tested design decisions made by security engineers within a well documented format. Patterns allow for complex security concepts, and mechanisms, to be expressed such that non domain experts can make use of them. Our research is concerned with the development of pattern languages for advanced crypto-systems. From our experience developing pattern languages we have encountered several recurring issues within security design pattern engineering. These issues, if not addressed, will affect the adoption of security design patterns. This paper describes these issues and discusses how they could be addressed

How Non-Research Investments Affect Research Impact: The Case of Maize Technology Adoption in Southern Mali

Crop Production/Industries, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Agricultural Research Impact Assessment: The Case of Maize Technology Adoption in Southern Mali

Adoption of the improved maize package was particularly rapid during the period 1980-86 when an attractive guaranteed price was offered and extension activities were reinforced by a maize project that included the establishment of a seed multiplication program. Following cereal market price liberalization in 1986, maize prices fell and have been subject to considerable variability. Area has continued to expand, but farmers have greatly reduced fertilizer use, switched back to maize-late millet intercropping, and substituted early maturing varieties better suited to their own food security needs. The estimated internal rate of return (IRR) to investment in maize research and extension in southern Mali over the period 1969-90 is 135%. This high rate can be attributed to low research costs (much of the technical package was borrowed from research conducted elsewhere in West Africa), and the high economic value of maize as an import substitute. Sensitivity analysis indicates that the IRR is robust with respect to adverse changes in assumptions concerning overvaluation of the exchange rate, research costs, extension costs, and area of improved maize. It is moderately sensitive to price and yield reductions.food security, food policy, maize, Crop Production/Industries, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Downloads June 2008 - June 2009: 26, R11,

Weighting CMB and Galactic synchrotron polarisation

We review the present knowledge of the diffuse Galactic synchrotron emission in polarisation. At microwave frequencies, we assess the expected contamination to the CMB polarisation angular power spectrum, for $E$ and $B$ modes, as expected after the WMAP first year measurements.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, proc. of the CMBnet workshop, 20-21 Feb. 2003, Oxford, U

Improved Pseudofermion Approach for All-Point Propagators

Quark propagators with arbitrary sources and sinks can be obtained more efficiently using a pseudofermion method with a mode-shifted action. Mode-shifting solves the problem of critical slowing down (for light quarks) induced by low eigenmodes of the Dirac operator. The method allows the full physical content of every gauge configuration to be extracted, and should be especially helpful for unquenched QCD calculations. The method can be applied for all the conventional quark actions: Wilson, Sheikoleslami-Wohlert, Kogut-Susskind, as well as Ginsparg-Wilson compliant overlap actions. The statistical properties of the method are examined and examples of physical processes under study are presented.Comment: LateX, 26 pages, 10 eps figure