Security Services on an Optimized Thin Hypervisor for Embedded Systems

Virtualization has been used in computer servers for a long time as a means to improve utilization, isolation and management. In recent years, embedded devices have become more powerful, increasingly connected and able to run applications on open source commodity operating systems. It only seems natural to apply these virtualization techniques on embedded systems, but with another objective. In computer servers, the main goal was to share the powerful computers with multiple guests to maximize utilization. In embedded systems the needs are different. Instead of utilization, virtualization can be used to support and increase security by providing isolation and multiple secure execution environments for its guests. This thesis presents the design and implementation of a security application, and demonstrates how a thin software virtualization layer developed by SICS can be used to increase the security for a single FreeRTOS guest on an ARM platform. In addition to this, the thin hypervisor was also analyzed for improvements in respect to footprint and overall performance. The selected improvements were then applied and verified with profiling tools and benchmark tests. Our results show that a thin hypervisor can be a very flexible and efficient software solution to provide a secure and isolated execution environment for security critical applications. The applied optimizations reduced the footprint of the hypervisor by over 52%, while keeping the performance overhead at a manageable level

MediaEval 2016 Predicting Media Interestingness Task

Volume: 1739 Host publication title: MediaEval 2016 Multimedia Benchmark Workshop Host publication sub-title: Working Notes Proceedings of the MediaEval 2016 WorkshopNon peer reviewe

Cryptic diversity of limestone karst inhabiting land snails (Cyclophorus spp.) in northern Vietnam, their evolutionary history and the description of four new species

Limestone karsts can form terrestrial habitat islands for calcium-dependent organisms. In Vietnam, many karst habitats are threatened, while their rich biodiversity is still far from being thoroughly explored. Given that conservation of karst biota strongly relies on correct species identification, the presence of undetected cryptic species can pose severe problems. The present study focuses on cryptic diversity among karst-inhabiting land snails of the genus Cyclophorus in northern Vietnam, where specimens with a similar shell morphology have been reported from various regions. In order to examine the diversity and evolutionary history of this “widespread morphotype”, we generated a Bayesian phylogeny based on DNA sequence data. Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery (ABGD) and the Bayesian implementation of the Poisson tree processes model (bPTP) contributed to species delimitation and analyses of shell shape and size aided the morphological characterisation of individual species. We found that the examined specimens of the widespread morphotype did not form a single monophyletic group in the phylogeny but clustered into several different clades. We delimited nine different species that develop the widespread morphotype and described four of them as new. Processes of convergent evolution were probably involved in the origin of the delimited species, while their generally allopatric distribution could result from interspecific competition. Our findings indicate ongoing processes of speciation and a potential case of morphological character displacement. The high degree of morphological overlap found among the species underlines the importance of DNA sequence data for species delimitation and description in the genus Cyclophorus. Given the findings of the present study and the high potential that as yet undiscovered cryptic taxa have also evolved in other groups of karst-inhabiting organisms, we argue for a systematic and efficient detection and description of Vietnam’s karst biodiversity to provide a solid basis for future conservation planning.Copyright: © 2019 von Oheimb et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Morfodinâmica, transporte e proveniência do sistema praia - duna frontal recente entre Itarema e Camocim, litoral oeste do Ceará

O litoral oeste cearense entre Itarema e Camocim constitui-se num laboratório natural apropriado ao estudo recente da dinâmica sedimentar. A presença de obstáculos rochosos e hidrodinâmicos e a forte ação do vento efetivo permitem testar padrões de continuidade e inversão da deriva litorânea regional nas areias litorâneas. Este trabalho avaliou morfodinâmica, transporte e proveniência das areias do sistema praia - duna frontal através de estudo de campo, granulometria e petrografia de minerais pesados de amostras recentes coletadas na zona de espraiamento e nas cristas de dunas frontais incipientes no trecho mencionado. A diversidade morfológica do sistema aponta para o predomínio de esporões alongados segundo a deriva litorânea regional, a leste, e de praias anexadas sem interrupções com formas eólicas mais extensas, a oeste. Nas areias praiais, a granulometria para todo o intervalo (100 km) é concordante com deriva litorânea regional para oeste. Em trechos locais, ficou demonstrado que o bloqueio físico exercido pela descarga fluvial de grandes drenagens pode favorecer o transporte no sentido oposto. Nesses trechos, porém, as estatísticas da granulometria são frequentemente pobres, trazendo ressalvas à interpretação e ressaltando a necessidade de maior detalhamento espacial da amostragem. Os minerais pesados tem proveniência primária relacionada a rochas orto- e para-derivadas de alto grau em gnaisses migmatizados do Domínio Médio Coreaú, metatexitos da Unidade Canindé e migmatitos e paragnaisses da Unidade Independência, além de plutônicas do Maciço da Meruoca e corpos menores associados. O índice de proveniência (iRZ) indica diminuição da contribuição relativa das fontes metamórficas no sentido oeste. Já o índice de transporte (iTZ), que diminui no mesmo rumo, teria seu resultado influenciado pelo enriquecimento local renovado em zircão por desembocaduras de diferentes portes e/ou inversões locais na deriva litorânea

Recommended reading list of early publications on atomic layer deposition-Outcome of the "Virtual Project on the History of ALD"

Atomic layer deposition (ALD), a gas-phase thin film deposition technique based on repeated, self-terminating gas-solid reactions, has become the method of choice in semiconductor manufacturing and many other technological areas for depositing thin conformal inorganic material layers for various applications. ALD has been discovered and developed independently, at least twice, under different names: atomic layer epitaxy (ALE) and molecular layering. ALE, dating back to 1974 in Finland, has been commonly known as the origin of ALD, while work done since the 1960s in the Soviet Union under the name "molecular layering" (and sometimes other names) has remained much less known. The virtual project on the history of ALD (VPHA) is a volunteer-based effort with open participation, set up to make the early days of ALD more transparent. In VPHA, started in July 2013, the target is to list, read and comment on all early ALD academic and patent literature up to 1986. VPHA has resulted in two essays and several presentations at international conferences. This paper, based on a poster presentation at the 16th International Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition in Dublin, Ireland, 2016, presents a recommended reading list of early ALD publications, created collectively by the VPHA participants through voting. The list contains 22 publications from Finland, Japan, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and United States. Up to now, a balanced overview regarding the early history of ALD has been missing; the current list is an attempt to remedy this deficiency. (C) 2016 Author(s).Peer reviewe

The 13th Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the SDSS-IV Survey Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) began observations in July 2014. It pursues three core programs: APOGEE-2,MaNGA, and eBOSS. In addition, eBOSS contains two major subprograms: TDSS and SPIDERS. This paper describes the first data release from SDSS-IV, Data Release 13 (DR13), which contains new data, reanalysis of existing data sets and, like all SDSS data releases, is inclusive of previously released data. DR13 makes publicly available 1390 spatially resolved integral field unit observations of nearby galaxies from MaNGA,the first data released from this survey. It includes new observations from eBOSS, completing SEQUELS. In addition to targeting galaxies and quasars, SEQUELS also targeted variability-selected objects from TDSS and X-ray selected objects from SPIDERS. DR13 includes new reductions ofthe SDSS-III BOSS data, improving the spectrophotometric calibration and redshift classification. DR13 releases new reductions of the APOGEE-1data from SDSS-III, with abundances of elements not previously included and improved stellar parameters for dwarf stars and cooler stars. For the SDSS imaging data, DR13 provides new, more robust and precise photometric calibrations. Several value-added catalogs are being released in tandem with DR13, in particular target catalogs relevant for eBOSS, TDSS, and SPIDERS, and an updated red-clump catalog for APOGEE.This paper describes the location and format of the data now publicly available, as well as providing references to the important technical papers that describe the targeting, observing, and data reduction. The SDSS website, http://www.sdss.org, provides links to the data, tutorials and examples of data access, and extensive documentation of the reduction and analysis procedures. DR13 is the first of a scheduled set that will contain new data and analyses from the planned ~6-year operations of SDSS-IV.PostprintPeer reviewe

Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV: mapping the Milky Way, nearby galaxies, and the distant universe

We describe the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV), a project encompassing three major spectroscopic programs. The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2) is observing hundreds of thousands of Milky Way stars at high resolution and high signal-to-noise ratios in the near-infrared. The Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey is obtaining spatially resolved spectroscopy for thousands of nearby galaxies (median ). The extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) is mapping the galaxy, quasar, and neutral gas distributions between and 3.5 to constrain cosmology using baryon acoustic oscillations, redshift space distortions, and the shape of the power spectrum. Within eBOSS, we are conducting two major subprograms: the SPectroscopic IDentification of eROSITA Sources (SPIDERS), investigating X-ray AGNs and galaxies in X-ray clusters, and the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS), obtaining spectra of variable sources. All programs use the 2.5 m Sloan Foundation Telescope at the Apache Point Observatory; observations there began in Summer 2014. APOGEE-2 also operates a second near-infrared spectrograph at the 2.5 m du Pont Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, with observations beginning in early 2017. Observations at both facilities are scheduled to continue through 2020. In keeping with previous SDSS policy, SDSS-IV provides regularly scheduled public data releases; the first one, Data Release 13, was made available in 2016 July

Evenness mediates the global relationship between forest productivity and richness

1. Biodiversity is an important component of natural ecosystems, with higher species richness often correlating with an increase in ecosystem productivity. Yet, this relationship varies substantially across environments, typically becoming less pronounced at high levels of species richness. However, species richness alone cannot reflect all important properties of a community, including community evenness, which may mediate the relationship between biodiversity and productivity. If the evenness of a community correlates negatively with richness across forests globally, then a greater number of species may not always increase overall diversity and productivity of the system. Theoretical work and local empirical studies have shown that the effect of evenness on ecosystem functioning may be especially strong at high richness levels, yet the consistency of this remains untested at a global scale. 2. Here, we used a dataset of forests from across the globe, which includes composition, biomass accumulation and net primary productivity, to explore whether productivity correlates with community evenness and richness in a way that evenness appears to buffer the effect of richness. Specifically, we evaluated whether low levels of evenness in speciose communities correlate with the attenuation of the richness–productivity relationship. 3. We found that tree species richness and evenness are negatively correlated across forests globally, with highly speciose forests typically comprising a few dominant and many rare species. Furthermore, we found that the correlation between diversity and productivity changes with evenness: at low richness, uneven communities are more productive, while at high richness, even communities are more productive. 4. Synthesis. Collectively, these results demonstrate that evenness is an integral component of the relationship between biodiversity and productivity, and that the attenuating effect of richness on forest productivity might be partly explained by low evenness in speciose communities. Productivity generally increases with species richness, until reduced evenness limits the overall increases in community diversity. Our research suggests that evenness is a fundamental component of biodiversity–ecosystem function relationships, and is of critical importance for guiding conservation and sustainable ecosystem management decisions

Native diversity buffers against severity of non-native tree invasions

Determining the drivers of non-native plant invasions is critical for managing native ecosystems and limiting the spread of invasive species$^{1,2}$. Tree invasions in particular have been relatively overlooked, even though they have the potential to transform ecosystems and economies$^{3,4}$. Here, leveraging global tree databases$^{5,6,7}$, we explore how the phylogenetic and functional diversity of native tree communities, human pressure and the environment influence the establishment of non-native tree species and the subsequent invasion severity. We find that anthropogenic factors are key to predicting whether a location is invaded, but that invasion severity is underpinned by native diversity, with higher diversity predicting lower invasion severity. Temperature and precipitation emerge as strong predictors of invasion strategy, with non-native species invading successfully when they are similar to the native community in cold or dry extremes. Yet, despite the influence of these ecological forces in determining invasion strategy, we find evidence that these patterns can be obscured by human activity, with lower ecological signal in areas with higher proximity to shipping ports. Our global perspective of non-native tree invasion highlights that human drivers influence non-native tree presence, and that native phylogenetic and functional diversity have a critical role in the establishment and spread of subsequent invasions