Architectural Access Control Policy Refinement and Verification under Uncertainty

In our connected world, confidentiality is a central quality requirement. A commonly used mechanism to meet confidentiality requirements is access control. However, access control policies are usually not defined on the architectural abstraction level and are imprecise during design time due to the high degree of uncertainty. This impedes early considerations of confidentiality as implied by "Privacy by Design". We propose an approach to refine and verify access control policies while handling uncertainty that fills the gap between high-level confidentiality requirements and low-level access control

Domain-specific Language for Data-driven Design Time Analyses and Result Mappings for Logic Programs

In der vernetzten Welt von Heute ist der Austausch von Daten für viele Anwendungen unerlässlich. Mit der zunehmenden Vernetzung und dem wachsenden Datenaufkommen wird die Gewährleistung von Sicherheit, Datenschutz und die Einhaltung rechtlicher Vorgaben immer wichtiger. Um diesen Anforderungen frühzeitig gerecht zu werden, können Datenflussanalysen zur Entwurfszeit eingesetzt werden. Durch explizite Modellierung der Daten und ihrer Eigenschaften kann das Architekturmodell automatisch gegen Datenflussbeschränkungen getestet werden. Diese Verifikationsansätze transformieren die modellierte Architektur in ihnen zugrunde liegende Formalismen wie z.B. logische Programme. Um die Aussagekraft der Beschränkungen zu erhöhen, müssen diese oft ebenfalls unter Nutzung des Formalismus ausgedrückt werden. Dies erfordert von den Architekten Kenntnisse über den Formalismus, die transformierte Architektur und die Verifikationsumgebung. Unser Ziel ist es, die Lücke zwischen der architektonischen Domäne und dem zugrundeliegenden Formalismus zu schließen, die bei der Formulierung von Datenflussbeschränkungen auftritt. Wir schlagen eine domänenspezifische Sprache (DSL) vor, die es Architekten ermöglicht, Einschränkungen bereits während der Definition der Architektur festzulegen. Durch die Verwendung der selben Terminologie, die auch zur Modellierung der Architektur eingesetzt wird, können individualisierte Beschränkungen ohne Kenntnisse des Überprüfungsprozesses formuliert werden. Zusätzlich stellen wir eine Abbildung der in unserer DSL formulierten Einschränkungen von der Architekturdomäne in den Formalismus vor. Analyseergebnisse werden in die Architekturdomäne zurück abgebildet, um deren Interpretation zu erleichtern. Die DSL basiert auf der Sammlung und Generalisierung bestehender Einschränkungen aus realen Fallstudien. Wir bewerten die Aussagekraft, Nutzbarkeit und Kompaktheit der DSL für Datenflussbeschränkungen unterschiedlicher Größe. Ungefähr 75% der untersuchten Beschränkungen können mit der ersten Version unserer DSL ausgedrückt werden, wobei bis zu 10-mal weniger Quelltext benötigt wird. Neben den Grundlagen der Datenflussmodellierung und Wissen über die Modellierungsumgebung sind keine weiteren Kenntnisse über den Transformations- oder Verifikationsmechanismus erforderlich. Zusätzlich untersuchen wir die Äquivalenz der Analyseergebnisse von Beschränkungen, die in unserer DSL formuliert wurden mit Beschränkungen, welche direkt unter Nutzung des Formalismus ausgedrückt wurden. In unseren Tests erreichen Beschränkungen, welche mit Hilfe unserer DSL formuliert wurden, eine 100%ige Ausbeute bei einer Präzision von 90%

Copula Omission in early Child French

In language acquisition research, the omission of the copula verb as a case of functional element dropping has repeatedly been attested in Western European languages, but not often thoroughly analyzed. This study investigates the omission of the French copula être in monolingual L1-acquisition by integrating three different viewpoints: first, the Truncation Hypothesis advanced by Luigi Rizzi in order to account for Root-Infinitive clauses is adopted as a model for the syntactic structure of Copula Omissions. Second, the reported syntactic and semantic restrictions regulating Copula Omission, notably the copula predicate’s semantic type, are discussed in the light of Claudia Maienborn’s study on the copula’s logic form. It is argued that the frequently cited distinction between stage-level and individual-level predicates is in fact based pragmatically rather than semantically or syntactically. Lastly, the productive use of Left and Right Dislocation in spoken French is analyzed regarding its repercussions on the French information structure, pragmatical discourse considerations, as well as its prosody. It is proposed that dislocation contexts favor French Copula Omission in child speech because of their impact on the salience of fragmentary utterances. This hypothesis is tested in comparison to the correlation with predicate type by analyzing the CHILDES recordings of three monolingual French children. The results show that French Copula Omission correlates with dislocation as well as with predicate type in a significant way. This confirms that children exploit pragmatical economy considerations when producing fragmentary structures, which may explain why child speech omissions often prove optional.   &nbsp

Dealing with Uncertainty in Architectural Confidentiality Analysis

In a connected world, confidentiality becomes increasingly critical. To cope with confidentiality on a higher abstraction level of software systems, architectural analyses have been proposed. By explicitly modeling data in the system design, the validity of access control policies can be ensured. However, the required information for such analyses is often too imprecise due to the high degree of uncertainty at design-time which results in incomplete and inaccurate policies. In this paper, we describe three key challenges while facing uncertainty and show how software architects could be supported in enhancing confidentiality throughout software design and evolution

Variations in the management of acute illness in children with congenital adrenal hyperplasia: An audit of three paediatric hospitals

Objective: Episodes of acute adrenal insufficiency (AI)/adrenal crises (AC) are a serious consequence of congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). This study aimed to assess morbidity from acute illness in CAH and identify factors associated with use of IV hydrocortisone, admission and diagnosis of an AC. Method: An audit of acute illness presentations among children with CAH to paediatric hospitals in New South Wales, Australia, between 2000 and 2015. Results: There were 321 acute presentations among 74 children with CAH. Two thirds (66.7%, n=214) of these resulted in admission and 49.2% (n=158) of the patients received intravenous (IV) hydrocortisone. An AC was diagnosed in (9.0%). Prior to presentation, 64.2% (n=206) had used oral stress dosing and 22.1% (n=71) had been given intramuscular (IM) hydrocortisone. Vomiting was recorded in 61.1% (n=196), 32.7% (n=64) of whom had used IM hydrocortisone. Admission, AC diagnosis, and use of stress dosing varied significantly between hospitals. IM use varied from 7.0% in one metropolitan hospital to 45.8% in the regional hospital. Children aged up to 12 months had the lowest levels of stress dosing and IV hydrocortisone administration. A higher number of prior hospital attendances for acute illness was associated with increased use of IM hydrocortisone. Conclusion: Pre-hospital and in-hospital management of children with CAH can vary between health services. Children under 12 months have lower levels of stress dosing prior to hospital than other age groups. Experience with acute episodes improves self-management of CAH in the context of acute illness in educated patient populations

Maximally twisted eleven-dimensional supergravity

We perform the maximal twist of eleven-dimensional supergravity. This twist is partially topological and exists on manifolds of $G_2 \times SU(2)$ holonomy. Our derivation starts with an explicit description of the Batalin-Vilkovisky complex associated to the three-form multiplet in the pure spinor superfield formalism. We then determine the $L_\infty$ module structure of the supersymmetry algebra on the component fields. We twist the theory by modifying the differential of the Batalin-Vilkovisky complex to incorporate the action of a scalar supercharge. We find that the resulting free twisted theory is given by the tensor product of the de Rham and Dolbeault complexes of the respective $G_2$ and $SU(2)$ holonomy manifolds as conjectured by Costello.Comment: 40 pages, 10 table