Returning to the Circle: The Reemergence of Traditional Dispute Resolution in Native American Communities

An examination of Native American cultural definitions of justice illustrates the cultural relevance of traditional dispute resolution processes. Because these alternative processes focus largely on community inclusion and the importance of party healing after a crime, concepts central to Native American worldview, traditional dispute resolution is superior to the mainstream adversarial court system for handling many criminal matters in the Native American context. The successes of traditional dispute resolution processes in Native American communities are also evidence of the potential cross cultural applications of such processes within the mainstream criminal justice syste

Privacy-Aware Risk-Based Access Control Systems

Modern organizations collect massive amounts of data, both internally (from their employees and processes) and externally (from customers, suppliers, partners). The increasing availability of these large datasets was made possible thanks to the increasing storage and processing capability. Therefore, from a technical perspective, organizations are now in a position to exploit these diverse datasets to create new data-driven businesses or optimizing existing processes (real-time customization, predictive analytics, etc.). However, this kind of data often contains very sensitive information that, if leaked or misused, can lead to privacy violations. Privacy is becoming increasingly relevant for organization and businesses, due to strong regulatory frameworks (e.g., the EU General Data Protection Regulation GDPR, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act HIPAA) and the increasing awareness of citizens about personal data issues. Privacy breaches and failure to meet privacy requirements can have a tremendous impact on companies (e.g., reputation loss, noncompliance fines, legal actions). Privacy violation threats are not exclusively caused by external actors gaining access due to security gaps. Privacy breaches can also be originated by internal actors, sometimes even by trusted and authorized ones. As a consequence, most organizations prefer to strongly limit (even internally) the sharing and dissemination of data, thereby making most of the information unavailable to decision-makers, and thus preventing the organization from fully exploit the power of these new data sources. In order to unlock this potential, while controlling the privacy risk, it is necessary to develop novel data sharing and access control mechanisms able to support risk-based decision making and weigh the advantages of information against privacy considerations. To achieve this, access control decisions must be based on an (dynamically assessed) estimation of expected cost and benefits compared to the risk, and not (as in traditional access control systems) on a predefined policy that statically defines what accesses are allowed and denied. In Risk-based access control for each access request, the corresponding risk is estimated and if the risk is lower than a given threshold (possibly related to the trustworthiness of the requester), then access is granted or denied. The aim is to be more permissive than in traditional access control systems by allowing for a better exploitation of data. Although existing risk-based access control models provide an important step towards a better management and exploitation of data, they have a number of drawbacks which limit their effectiveness. In particular, most of the existing risk-based systems only support binary access decisions: the outcome is “allowed” or “denied”, whereas in real life we often have exceptions based on additional conditions (e.g., “I cannot provide this information, unless you sign the following non-disclosure agreement.” or “I cannot disclose this data, because they contain personal identifiable information, but I can disclose an anonymized version of the data.”). In other words, the system should be able to propose risk mitigation measures to reduce the risk (e.g., disclose partial or anonymized version of the requested data) instead of denying risky access requests. Alternatively, it should be able to propose appropriate trust enhancement measures (e.g., stronger authentication), and once they are accepted/fulfilled by the requester, more information can be shared. The aim of this thesis is to propose and validate a novel privacy enhancing access control approach offering adaptive and fine-grained access control for sensitive data-sets. This approach enhances access to data, but it also mitigates privacy threats originated by authorized internal actors. More in detail: 1. We demonstrate the relevance and evaluate the impact of authorized actors’ threats. To this aim, we developed a privacy threats identification methodology EPIC (Evaluating Privacy violation rIsk in Cyber security systems) and apply EPIC in a cybersecurity use case where very sensitive information is used. 2. We present the privacy-aware risk-based access control framework that supports access control in dynamic contexts through trust enhancement mechanisms and privacy risk mitigation strategies. This allows us to strike a balance between the privacy risk and the trustworthiness of the data request. If the privacy risk is too large compared to the trust level, then the framework can identify adaptive strategies that can decrease the privacy risk (e.g., by removing/obfuscating part of the data through anonymization) and/or increase the trust level (e.g., by asking for additional obligations to the requester). 3. We show how the privacy-aware risk-based approach can be integrated to existing access control models such as RBAC and ABAC and that it can be realized using a declarative policy language with a number of advantages including usability, flexibility, and scalability. 4. We evaluate our approach using several industrial relevant use cases, elaborated to meet the requirements of the industrial partner (SAP) of this industrial doctorate

Simulation multi-échelle et stochastique du comportement des matériaux composites sous sollicitations dynamiques

La simulation du comportement mécanique des matériaux composites sous chargement dynamique est rendue difficile par les différentes échelles à prendre en compte (échelles des fibres, des torons, des plis, de la structure, …). La prédiction de l’endommagement et de la durabilité de ces matériaux est au cœur des problématiques. Les outils numériques pour réaliser cette tâche existent mais dans certains cas la résolution des problèmes couplés multiphysiques demandent des temps de calcul prohibitifs, et dans d’autres cas les algorithmes classiques dédiés à l’ingénieur ne fournissent pas de solution. L’enjeu majeur aujourd’hui est de développer des méthodes de calcul permettant de prendre en compte les phénomènes apparaissant à l’échelle microscopique (rupture de fibres, fissuration, …) et tenir compte de la variabilité spatiale de la microstructure tout en conservant des temps de calculs faibles. Pour cela on utilise la capacité de la PGD (Proper Generalized Decomposition) à calculer des solutions de problèmes multidimensionnels et multiphysiques via une séparation des variables. La méthode PGD est une méthode de réduction de modèle dite «a priori» dans le fait que la solution est construite sans avoir d’information préalable sur le phénomène que l’on souhaite simuler. L’objectif de ce travail consiste à développer une stratégie numérique de type PGD adaptée à la simulation microscopique du comportement des composites sous sollicitations dynamiques. Cette stratégie doit permettre de prendre en compte la variabilité dans le matériau (variabilité liée aux procédés d’élaboration ou à des typologies d'endommagements) et d’élaborer des lois de distribution de propriétés mécaniques induites par cette variabilité

Diasporic Strangers in the Mirror: Ever-Evolving Identity and the Immigrant Experience

This text explores the disparity between immigrant parents and their American born or raised children and show the chasm of misunderstanding between generations navigating different national and cultural contexts found in novels such as The Joy Luck Club, The Namesake, Americanah, and Everything I Never Told You

On the Dirichlet boundary control of the heat equation with a final observation Part I: A space-time mixed formulation and penalization

We are interested in the optimal control problem of the heat equation where the quadratic cost functional involves a final observation and the control variable is a Dirichlet boundary condition. We first prove that this problem is well-posed. Next, we check its equivalence with a fixed point problem for a space-time mixed system of parabolic equations. Finally, we introduce a Robin penalization on the Dirichlet boundary control for the mixed problem and analyze the convergence when the penalty parameter tends to zero

Impact of a natural soil salinity gradient on fungal endophytes in wild barley (Hordeum maritimum With.)

Occurrence and distribution pattern of fungal endophytes in different tissues of halophytic plants across saline depressions are poorly studied. We investigated the endophytic fungal communities inhabiting roots, stems and leaves of Hordeum maritimum collected in a soil salinity gradient, i.e. non-saline, slightly saline and saline, using a culture-dependent approach. A total of 20 taxa belonging to Ascomycota phylum were identified by ITS rRNA gene sequence. Pyronema domesticum and Alternaria spp. were the most frequently isolated. Roots host higher diversity and were more frequently colonized by endophytes than aboveground organs. Endophytic composition of all organs surveyed differed according to salinity gradient. Contrary to expectations, the colonization rate of roots increased with soil salinity, indicating that under salt stress the endophyte-plant association is promoted. All the isolates exhibited in vitro saline tolerance, especially those belonging to genera Xylaria, Chalastospora, Alternaria and Pyronema. Fungal tolerance to NaCl under in vitro conditions appears to be more dependent on the isolates than on the sites of their isolation, suggesting that under natural conditions other factors, beyond soil salinity, should be taken into account. These findings highlight the importance of fungal endophytes in the protection and/or adaptation of both interacting species (plant-fungus) to salt stress under natural conditions. Graphical Abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]This work is funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology–FCT–in the scope of the Transnational Cooperation Portugal–Tunisia project n8 6818 and partially by FEDER through the Operational Competitiveness Program–COMPETE–and by national funds through FCT–in the scope of the project PTDC/ AGR-PRO/4354/2012.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

EPIC: a Methodology for Evaluating Privacy Violation Risk in Cybersecurity Systems

Cybersecurity Systems (CSSs) play a fundamental role in guaranteeing data confidentiality, integrity, and availability. However, while processing data, CSSs can intentionally or unintentionally expose personal information to people that can misuse them. For this reason, privacy implications of a CSS should be carefully evaluated. This is a challenging task mainly because modern CSSs have complex architectures and components. Moreover, data processed by CSSs can be exposed to different actors, both internal and external to the organization. This contribution presents a methodology, called EPIC, that is specifically designed to evaluate privacy violation risks in cybersecurity systems. Differently, from other general purpose guidelines, EPIC is an operational methodology aimed at guiding security and privacy experts with step-by-step instructions from modeling data exposure in the CSS to the systematical identification of privacy threats and evaluation of their associated privacy violation risk. This contribution also shows the application of the EPIC methodology to the use case of a large academic organization CSS protecting over 15, 000 hosts

A reduced model to simulate the damage in composite laminates under low velocity impact

This article presents an efficient numerical strategy to simulate the damage in composite laminates under low velocity impact. The proposed method is based on a separated representation of the solution in the context of the Proper Generalized Decomposition (PGD). This representation leads to an important reduction of the number of degrees of freedom. In addition to the PGD, the main ingredients of the model are the following: (a) cohesive zone models (CZM) to represent the delamination and the matrix cracking, (b) a modified nonlinear Hertzian contact law to calculate the impact force, (c) the implicit Newmark integration scheme to compute the evolution of the solution during the impact. The method is applied to simulate an impact on a laminated plate. The results are similar to the solution obtained with a classical finite element simulation. The shape of the delaminated area is found to be coherent with some experimental results from the literature.Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers, Campus de Bordeaux, I2M-DuMAS Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers, Campus d’Angers, LAMP

0391: Cardiac involvement in ankylosing spondylitis

BackgroundCardiac involvement in ankylosing spondylitis is common. We have tried through this study to analyze the cardiovascular events among 50 patients with ankylosing spondylitis.MethodsA retrospective study including 50 patients with ankylosing spondylitis. All patients underwent a complete physical examination with a heart and lung auscultation and an electro-cardiogram (ECG). Transthoracic ultrasound was performed whenever there was an abnormal physical examination and/or ECG.ResultsThe study included 47 men and 3 women, the sex ratio is 15,6. The average age of onset was 26±7 years. The mode of onset is axial in 95% of cases (low back pain and/or buttock). The extra-articular manifestations are present in 54% of cases. Cardiac involvement is present in 9 cases (18% of cases). The reason for consultation is dyspnea in 2 patients. In other cases, cardiac involvement was discovered incidentally. Aortic regurgitation was noted in 4 patients. Mitral insufficiency was found in 3 cases. Two patients have predominantly septal hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and one patient presented an array of pulmonary insufficiency. The average time of onset of cardiac involvement was 8±5 years. All patients were put under special medical treatment of their heart, with good clinical outcome.ConclusionCardiac involvement in ankylosing spondyllitis is seen more frequently in men, especially in the old cases. A close relationship between time to onset of aortic insufficiency and duration of disease progression was found. It would be responsible for one third of deaths of patients. It was significantly more frequent in HLA B27 positive patients (especially complete atrioventricular block and aortic insufficiency)