“We Went to the Hills : Four Afghan Life Stories

This dissertation examines four Afghan life stories for prevalent micro-historical perspectives on shared Afghan macro-historical experiences. The introduction explains my background, motivations and objectives for conducting life history research in Afghanistan in 2004 and 2005. The first chapter outlines an approach applied to examining life stories that addresses three interrelated questions: first, how the narrator\u27s presentation is related to the memory of the actual events narrated (biographical chronology), second, how a narrative image/s of a person\u27s past is established in relationships to individually significant audience/s (narrative self / audience), and third, how interrelationships between the individual life and the socio-historical context are expressed by troubling or valued dimensions of the past (existential orientation). My examination focuses upon significant historical and interpersonal concerns as they manifest across individual life narratives. Each chapter begins with background on the circumstances of the interview, followed by the interview transcription, and concludes with an extended analysis of the life story. I conclude with ethnographic interpretation of each life story in light of recent Afghan history and speculate about the meanings of violence and the limits of trauma for contemporary understanding of Afghan culture and history

Using distributional similarity to organise biomedical terminology

We investigate an application of distributional similarity techniques to the problem of structural organisation of biomedical terminology. Our application domain is the relatively small GENIA corpus. Using terms that have been accurately marked-up by hand within the corpus, we consider the problem of automatically determining semantic proximity. Terminological units are dened for our purposes as normalised classes of individual terms. Syntactic analysis of the corpus data is carried out using the Pro3Gres parser and provides the data required to calculate distributional similarity using a variety of dierent measures. Evaluation is performed against a hand-crafted gold standard for this domain in the form of the GENIA ontology. We show that distributional similarity can be used to predict semantic type with a good degree of accuracy

Silicon device performance measurements to support temperature range enhancement

Semiconductor power devices are typically rated for operation below 150 C. Little data is known for power semiconductors over 150 C. In most cases, the device is derated to zero operating power at 175 C. At the high temperature end of the temperature range, the intrinsic carrier concentration increases to equal the doping concentration level and the silicon behaves as an intrinsic semiconductor. The increase in intrinsic carrier concentration results in a shift of the Fermi level toward mid-bandgap at elevated temperatures. This produces a shift in devices characteristics as a function of temperature. By increasing the doping concentration higher operating temperatures can be achieved. This technique was used to fabricate low power analog and digital devices in silicon with junction operating temperatures in excess of 300 C. Additional temperature effects include increased p-n junction leakage with increasing temperature, resulting in increased resistivity. The temperature dependency of physical properties results in variations in device characteristics. These must be quantified and understood in order to develop extended temperature range operation

English historical novels on the first century A.D. as reflecting the trends of religious thought during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

1. The Outside Tradition • 2. The Novel on Early Christian Times 1820-1850 • 3. The Early Christian Novel Ehters Controversy • 4. The Imaginative Approach to the New Testament Outside the Novel • 5. The Early Christian Romancers, 1860-1900 • 6. Modernism, and the Reconstruction of a Point of view Towards Christian Origins • 7. The First Two Decades of the Twentieth Century • 8. Novels, mostly of Scepticism, 1920-1939 • 9. Novels, chiefly of Belief, 1940-1955 • 10. The Continuing Outside Traditio

Developer Essentials:Top Five Interventions to Support Secure Software Development

Cyber security is a big and increasing problem. Almost every week we hear of a new exploit or security breach that leads to major concerns about our digital infrastructure. Software systems are at the very heart of this digital infrastructure. Therefore, while there may be many commercial, social and practical factors that contribute, it is certain that the decisions of software development teams must have a significant impact on the vulnerability of those systems. In this research we explored ways in which outside actors – such as management, coaches, security teams, industry bodies, and government agencies – may positively influence the security of the software created by development teams, while keeping the development competitive and practically viable. This means that the costs of such 'interventions' need to be acceptable relative to the risks that they address. We interviewed 14 specialists in introducing software security to development teams. Based on a rigorous analysis of their responses, we were surprised to find that three of the most cost effective and scalable interventions are 'cultural interventions' – ones that work to influence the working of development teams, rather than the artefacts they produce: 1. Developing a 'threat model' and using that model to achieve commercially negotiated, risk based, agreement how threats are to be addressed; 2. A motivational workshop engaging the team with the genuine security problems as they affect their specific projects, while making it clear how they are to address those problems; and 3. Continuing 'nudges' to the developers to remind them of the importance of security. The other two low-cost and effective interventions relate to the code produced: 4. The use of source code analysis tools; and 5. The informed choice of components based on their security quality. We therefore suggest that providing guidelines, technical support and mentoring in each of these five interventions will have a significant effect on improving the security quality of code developed in future

I'd Like to Have an Argument, Please:Using Dialectic for Effective App Security

The lack of good secure development practice for app developers threatens everyone who uses mobile software. Current practice emphasizes checklists of processes and security errors to avoid, and has not proved effective in the application development domain. Based on analysis of interviews with relevant security experts, we suggest that secure app development requires 'dialectic': challenging dialog with a range of counterparties, continued throughout the development cycle. By further studying the different dialectic techniques possible in programmers' communications, we shall be able to empower app developers to produce the secure software that we need

Developer Essentials:Top Five Interventions to Support Secure Software Development

Cyber security is a big and increasing problem. Almost every week we hear of a new exploit or security breach that leads to major concerns about our digital infrastructure. Software systems are at the very heart of this digital infrastructure. Therefore, while there may be many commercial, social and practical factors that contribute, it is certain that the decisions of software development teams must have a significant impact on the vulnerability of those systems. In this research we explored ways in which outside actors – such as management, coaches, security teams, industry bodies, and government agencies – may positively influence the security of the software created by development teams, while keeping the development competitive and practically viable. This means that the costs of such 'interventions' need to be acceptable relative to the risks that they address. We interviewed 14 specialists in introducing software security to development teams. Based on a rigorous analysis of their responses, we were surprised to find that three of the most cost effective and scalable interventions are 'cultural interventions' – ones that work to influence the working of development teams, rather than the artefacts they produce: 1. Developing a 'threat model' and using that model to achieve commercially negotiated, risk based, agreement how threats are to be addressed; 2. A motivational workshop engaging the team with the genuine security problems as they affect their specific projects, while making it clear how they are to address those problems; and 3. Continuing 'nudges' to the developers to remind them of the importance of security. The other two low-cost and effective interventions relate to the code produced: 4. The use of source code analysis tools; and 5. The informed choice of components based on their security quality. We therefore suggest that providing guidelines, technical support and mentoring in each of these five interventions will have a significant effect on improving the security quality of code developed in future

Early Report: How to Improve Programmers' Expertise at App Security?

Apps present a significant security risk. Developer inexperience of security is a major contributor to this risk. Based on interviews with a dozen app security experts we identify that most app programmers simply do not care about security. Only by working on the factors influencing programmers’ motivation, and afterwards developing their whole system security skills, shall we shall we begin to see the kind of secure apps that industry needs

How to Improve the Security Skills of Mobile App Developers:Comparing and Contrasting Expert Views

Programmers’ lack of knowledge and ability in secure development threatens everyone who uses mobile apps. There’s no consensus on how to empower app programmers to get that knowledge. Based on interviews with twelve industry experts we argue that the discipline of secure app development is still at an early stage. Only once industry and academia have produced effective app developer motivation and training approaches shall we begin to see the kinds of secure apps we need to combat crime and privacy invasions