Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2004. / Document formatted into pages; contains xvi, 162 p.; also includes grpahics (some col.). Includes bibliographical references. Abstract available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center; full text release delayed at author's request until 2006 May 4.

Zugl.: Innsbruck, Universiẗat, Dipl.-Arb., 2006.

Website Fingerprinting (WF) attacks have become an area of concern for advocates of web Privacy Enhancing Technology (PET)s as they may allow a passive, local, eaves- dropper to eventually identify the accessed web page, endangering the protection offered by those PETs. Recent studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of those attacks through a number of experiments. However, some researchers in academia and Tor community demonstrated that the assumptions of WF attacks studies greatly simplify the problem and don’t reflect the evaluation of this vulnerability in practical scenarios. That leads to suspicion in the Tor community and among Tor Browser users about the efficacy of those attacks in real-world scenarios. In this thesis, we survey the literature of WF showing the research assumptions that have been made in the WF attacks against Tor. We then assess their practicality in real-world settings by evaluating their compliance to Tor Browser threat model, design requirements and to the Tor Project recommendations. Interestingly, we found one of the research assumptions related to the active content configuration in Tor Browser to be a reasonable assumption in all settings. Disabling or enabling the active content are both reasonable given the fact that the enabled configuration is the default of the Tor Browser, and the disabled one is the configuration recommended by Tor Project for users who require the highest possible security and anonymity. However, given the current published WF attacks, disabling the active con- tent is advantageous for the attacker as it makes the classification task easier by reducing the level of a web page randomness. To evaluate Tor Browser security in our proposed more realistic threat model, we collect a sample of censored dynamic web pages with Tor Browser in the default setting, which enables active content such as Javascript, and in the recommended setting by the Tor Project which disables the active content. We use Panchenko Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier to study the identifiability of this sample of web pages. For pages that are very dynamic, we achieve a recognition rate of 42% when JavaScript is disabled, compared to 35% when turned on. Our results show that the recommended ”more secure” setting for Tor Browser is actually more vulnerable to WF attacks than the default and non-recommended setting.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Medicine, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg for the degree of Master of Science, Occupational Therapy / Many patients have been supplied with dorsal dynamic finger extension splints for improvement of the range of motion of stiff finger joints, The design of the splint has been developed and improved over time, but the amount of force which was applied to a finger was determined intuitively. This research was undertaken to quantify the force exerted on a finger and to desigm a splint which would ensure that the amount of force exerted on a finger was constant and reliable. Since six studies were undertaken as part of the research, different protocols were developed for each. The findings of the studies can be summarised as follows: * similar tensions in a variety of rubber bands can not consistently be identified; rubber bands which are more or less equal in length, thickness and width do not undergo the same amount of elongation when identical weights are attached to them; friction between the outrigger and the traction unit plays a major role in determining how much force is exerted on a finger; a layer of Teflon paint over the outrigger coupled with a nylon fishing line traction unit causes the least amount of friction; stainless steel tension springs provide a more reliable and consistent force than rubber bands. Finally a splint was designed, taking into account the results of the six studies. The splint consists of a thermoplastic base with Velcro attachment straps, a pre-notched copper coated welding rod dipped in Teflon paint at least 14 days before use, a traction unit made from a stainless steel tension spring with a tension of 3g/rnm, a piece of nylon fishing line and a finger sling. Although the splint was designed to ensure that the force exerted on a finger is consistent and quantifiable, it should still be tested clinically to ascertain whether the design is really practical. / Andrew Chakane 2019

AreA is a transcription activation protein regulating over 100 genes in Aspergillus nidulans. It is a member of the 4 cysteine zinc finger family, with significant sequence homology in the zinc finger domain with related proteins. As with similar proteins, the zinc finger domain has been identified as the DNA binding motif. Other regions of the protein do not appear to playa role in directly binding DNA. A truncated form of AreA, known as the minimal zinc finger protein, containing the zinc finger domain alone, has been cloned and over-expressed in this study. This domain is sufficient to bind DNA specifically, but weakly. However, the addition of a further 30 amino acids, C-terminal to the minimal zinc finger, containing a highly basic tail is shown to increase the specific binding affinity. Other forms of AreA have been characterised and do not significantly increase the affinity of DNA binding. Identification of a consensus binding sequence by SELEX has also demonstrated that the minimal zinc finger is sufficient to specifically recognise the core sequence GA T A but suggests a degree of tolerance for TAT A. Addition of further regions of the protein do not extend the limits of the recognition sequence or change the consensus sequence. The SELEX experiments did not give any evidence of AreA functioning as a dimer, through proteinprotein interactions. Structural studies of the truncated forms of AreA, by circular dichroism, have suggested the formation of secondary structures for the zinc finger motif similar to those of other proteins and in agreement with the published NMR structure of the AreA zinc finger bound to DNA (Starich et ai., 1998a).

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1991. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 220-230). Also available via the Internet

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, San Francisco, 2004. / Bibliography: leaves 108-116. Also available online.