Extensible Access Control with Authorization Contracts

Existing programming language access control frameworks do not meet the needs of all software components.We propose an expressive framework for implementing access control monitors for components. The basis of the framework is a novel concept: the authority environment. An authority environment associates rights with an execution context. The building blocks of access control monitors in our framework are authorization contracts: software contracts that manage authority environments. We demonstrate the expressiveness of our framework by implementing a diverse set of existing access control mechanisms and writing custom access control monitors for three realistic case studies.Engineering and Applied Science

Integrating education for sustainable development into a higher education institution: beginning the journey

Much of the current literature on integrating sustainability into HEIs is focussed on why HEIs should embrace sustainable development (SD) and what is still missing or hindering work and the integration of efforts. There is much less exploration of how SD has been interpreted at the individual HEI level and action taken as a result. This case study reflects on important elements of the journey Nottingham Trent University (NTU) in the UK has taken to integrate sustainability, focussing on key decisions and activity in 2009/10. In highlighting this, the authors seek to empower those looking to support and/or lead the embedding of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), separately or as part of an integrated effort, in their own institution. Today in 2019, NTU is a global leader in integrating ESD as part of a wider SD agenda. The work which this paper presents, to understand and establish a baseline of key elements of NTU’s existing ESD activity and systems, was an important turning point. Activities undertaken to review and assess ‘where are we now?’, primarily through an institution-wide survey in 2009/10, led to important insights and supported dialogue, as well as the connection and underpinning of core administrative elements of the NTU SD framework and systems. Further recommendations are given in the final section of this paper on other drivers that can help to embed ESD within an HEI

Governance and sustainable development at higher education institutions

© 2020, Springer Nature B.V. Governance issues, here interpreted as the provisions of adequate policy frameworks characterized by reliability and accountability, coupled with resources to support their implementation, are known to be the basis for the implementation of sustainable development measures. This paper discusses the influence of governance in the ways sustainability is perceived and practiced in a higher education context. Apart from due considerations to the role of governance as the basis for regulation and institutional actions and management decisions, this paper reports on an empirical study undertaken in a sample of higher education institutions. This study entailed an analysis of sustainable development policies, certification, organizational structure, budget, reports, team for sustainability, staff training, and challenges for the integration of sustainability and governance. The results suggest that even though there are different opinions and attitudes on the role of governance, it is regarded as an important component in supporting efforts by higher education institutions to include considerations on sustainable development as part of their strategies

Practical Typed Lazy Contracts

Until now there has been no support for specifying and enforcing contracts within a lazy functional program. That is a shame, because contracts consist of pre- and post-conditions for functions that go beyond the standard static types. This paper presents the design and implementation of a small, easy-to-use, purely functional contract library for Haskell, which, when a contract is violated, also provides more useful information than the classical blaming of one contract partner. From now on lazy functional languages can profit from the assurances in the development of correct programs that contracts provide