Logs are append-only time-stamped records to represent events in computers or network devices. Today, in many real-world networking applications, logging is a central service however it is a big challenge to satisfy the conflicting requirements when the security of log records is of concern. On one hand, being kept on mostly untrusted hosts, the logs should be preserved against unauthorized modifications and privacy breaches. On the other, serving as the primary evidence for digital crimes, logs are often needed for analysis by investigators. In this thesis, motivated by these requirements we define a model which integrates forward integrity techniques with search capabilities of encrypted logs. We also implement this model with advanced cryptographic primitives such as Identity Based Encryption. Our model, in one side, provides secure delegation of search capabilities to authorized users while protecting information privacy, on the other, these search capabilities set boundaries of a user&rsquo / s search operation. By this way user can not access logs which are not related with his case. Also, in this dissertation, we propose an improvement to Schneier and Kelsey&rsquo / s idea of forward integrity mechanism.

In this thesis, rotation, scale and translation (RST) invariant automatic target recognition (ATR) for satellite imagery is presented. Template matching is used to realize the target recognition. However, unlike most of the studies of template matching in the literature, RST invariance is required in our problem, since most of the time we will have only a small number of templates of each target, while the targets to be recognized in the scenes will have various orientations, scaling and translations. RST invariance is studied in detail and implemented with some of the competing methods in the literature, such as Fourier-Mellin transform and bipectrum combined with log-polar mapping. Phase correlation and normalized cross-correlation are used as similarity metrics. Encountered drawbacks were overcome with additional operations and modifications of the algorithms. ATR using reconstruction of the target image with respect to the template, based on bispectrum, log-polar mapping and phase correlation outperformed the other methods and successful recognition was realized for various target types, especially for targets on relatively simpler backgrounds, i.e. containing little or no other objects.

No description available.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka på vilket sätt en slagverkare använder kroppen som semiotisk resurs samt hur övningsprocessen under en begränsad period är utformad. För att undersöka detta har jag under en femveckorsperiod övat på ett marimbastycke 20 minuter om dagen fem dagar i veckan och dokumenterat detta genom videoobservationer och loggboksskrivande. I analysen utgår jag ifrån ett designteoretiskt perspektiv. I resultatet redovisas att kroppen används både som uttrycksmedel men även som ett substitut för metronomen. Under övningspassen ligger ett stort fokus på tempo och stycket övas i uppdelade avsnitt och sällan som helhet. I diskussionen debatteras mitt användande av kroppen som semiotisk resurs utifrån ett designteoretiskt perspektiv. Vidare diskuteras i förhållande till relevant litteratur och forskning huruvida min övningsstrategi är fördelaktig för min progression. / The purpose of this study is to examine how a percussionist uses her body as a semiotic resource and how the process of practising during a limited period is designed. In order to realize this I have self-monitored my 20 minute long practice sessions five days a week during a five-week period. This process has been documented by a video recording device and by writing a log after each session. In the analysis I use design theory as a theoretical perspective. The results show that my body is used both as an expressive tool as well as substitute for the metronome. During the practice sessions, tempo appears to be the main focus, and the musical piece is played in separate movements and rarely played from beginning to end. In the last chapter usage of the body as a semiotic resource is discussed from a design theoretical perspective. Lastly the use and quality of my practice strategy is discussed in relation to relevant literature and research.

Cloud computing and big data technology continue to revolutionize how computing and data analysis are delivered today and in the future. To store and process the fast-changing big data, various scalable systems (e.g. key-value stores and MapReduce) have recently emerged in industry. However, there is a huge gap between what these open-source software systems can offer and what the real-world applications demand. First, scalable key-value stores are designed for simple data access methods, which limit their use in advanced database applications. Second, existing systems in the cloud need automatic performance optimization for better resource management with minimized operational overhead. Third, the demand continues to grow for privacy-preserving search and information sharing between autonomous data providers, as exemplified by the Healthcare information networks. My Ph.D. research aims at bridging these gaps. First, I proposed HINDEX, for secondary index support on top of write-optimized key-value stores (e.g. HBase and Cassandra). To update the index structure efficiently in the face of an intensive write stream, HINDEX synchronously executes append-only operations and defers the so-called index-repair operations which are expensive. The core contribution of HINDEX is a scheduling framework for deferred and lightweight execution of index repairs. HINDEX has been implemented and is currently being transferred to an IBM big data product. Second, I proposed Auto-pipelining for automatic performance optimization of streaming applications on multi-core machines. The goal is to prevent the bottleneck scenario in which the streaming system is blocked by a single core while all other cores are idling, which wastes resources. To partition the streaming workload evenly to all the cores and to search for the best partitioning among many possibilities, I proposed a heuristic based search strategy that achieves locally optimal partitioning with lightweight search overhead. The key idea is to use a white-box approach to search for the theoretically best partitioning and then use a black-box approach to verify the effectiveness of such partitioning. The proposed technique, called Auto-pipelining, is implemented on IBM Stream S. Third, I proposed ǫ-PPI, a suite of privacy preserving index algorithms that allow data sharing among unknown parties and yet maintaining a desired level of data privacy. To differentiate privacy concerns of different persons, I proposed a personalized privacy definition and substantiated this new privacy requirement by the injection of false positives in the published ǫ-PPI data. To construct the ǫ-PPI securely and efficiently, I proposed to optimize the performance of multi-party computations which are otherwise expensive; the key idea is to use addition-homomorphic secret sharing mechanism which is inexpensive and to do the distributed computation in a scalable P2P overlay.

In this paper we present some variants of transformed density rejection (TDR) that provide more flexibility (including the possibility to halve the expected number of uniform random numbers) at the expense of slightly higher memory requirements. Using a synchronized first stream of uniform variates and a second auxiliary stream (as suggested by Schmeiser and Kachitvichyanukul (1990)) TDR is well suited for correlation induction. Thus high positive and negative correlation between two streams of random variates with same or different distributions can be induced. The software can be downloaded from the UNURAN project page. (author's abstract) / Series: Preprint Series / Department of Applied Statistics and Data Processing

Τα φίλτρα λογαριθμικού πεδίου (log-domain filters) είναι μια οικογένεια φίλτρων συνεχούς χρόνου στην οποία γίνεται χρήση της μη-γραμμικής I/V χαρακτηριστικής των ενεργών στοιχείων (BJT τρανζίστορ, MOSFET τρανζίστορ σε ασθενή αναστροφή) για να επιτευχθεί γραμμική συμπεριφορά από είσοδο σε έξοδο. Επιπρόσθετα τα log-domain φίλτρα, προσφέρουν και άλλα πλεονεκτήματα, όπως την ηλεκτρονική ρύθμιση της συχνότητας αποκοπής, την λειτουργία σε υψηλές συχνότητες και την δυνατότητα λειτουργίας με χαμηλή τάση τροφοδοσίας. Στην παρούσα διατριβή προτείνεται μια καινούρια τεχνική σχεδιασμού log-domain φίλτρων, η οποία στηρίζεται στη κυματική μέθοδο (log-domain wave filters). Με αυτή την τεχνική, log-domain φίλτρα μπορούν να σχεδιαστούν είτε με την χρήση των κυματικών παραμέτρων σκέδασης (wave scattering parameters), είτε με την χρήση κυματικών τερματιστών θύρας (wave port terminator). Έτσι αρχικά, προτείνονται δομές log-domain κυματικών φίλτρων με χρήση των κυματικών παραμέτρων σκέδασης. Σε αυτήν την προσέγγιση, το log-domain κυματικό ισοδύναμο ενός επαγωγού σε σειρά κλάδο μετασχηματίζεται από το γραμμικό στο λογαριθμικό πεδίο. Τα log-domain κυματικά ισοδύναμα των υπολοίπων βασικών στοιχείων του παθητικού πρωτοτύπου φίλτρου προκύπτουν από το κυματικό ισοδύναμο του επαγωγού σε σειρά κλάδο με την εναλλαγή των εξόδων του ή/και την προσθήκη αντιστροφέων τάσης. Χρησιμοποιώντας μια διαφορετική προσέγγιση, προτείνονται δομές log-domain κυματικών φίλτρων με χρήση του log-domain κυματικού τερμαστιστή θύρας. Με την χρήση του σχεδιάζεται το κυματικό ισοδύναμο στο log-domain ενός πυκνωτή σε παράλληλο κλάδο, το οποίο χρησιμοποιείται ως το βασικό κυματικό ισοδύναμο δομικό στοιχείο. Τα κυματικά ισοδύναμα των υπολοίπων στοιχείων του παθητικού κυκλώματος προκύπτουν με χρήση των παραπάνω κυματικών ισοδυνάμων. Τέλος γίνεται μελέτη της επίδρασης των μη-ιδανικών χαρακτηριστικών του BJT τρανζίστορ και της επίδρασης των θερμοκρασιακών μεταβολών στην συμπεριφορά των προτεινόμενων φίλτρων, ενώ προτείνονται μέθοδοι τόσο για την επιμέρους όσο και την συνολική αντιστάθμισή τους. / Log-domain filters are a family of continuous time filters that instead of being designed using locally linearized components, directly exploit the non-linear nature of a BJT, or a MOSFET transistor operating in weak inversion, in order to obtain a system with overall linear performance. This way they exhibit high linearity even for large signal to bias ratios. In addition they have some other interesting features like tunability and the ability to work at high frequencies even with low voltage supplies. In the present dissertation a new method for the design of log-domain filters is proposed, based on the well-known wave method. According to this method log-domain filters can be designed using the wave scattering parameters or using the wave port terminator block. Structures of log-domain wave filters using wave scattering parameters are initially proposed. In this approach the log-domain wave equivalent of a series inductor is transformed from linear to log-domain. Log-domain wave equivalents of the other basic elements of a passive prototype are then derived by the interchange of its outputs or/and the addition of voltage inverters. These equivalents are then connected together forming the actual filter. Log-domain differential wave filters can be designed by the introduction of the log-domain differential wave equivalent of the series inductor. Using a different approach, log-domain wave filters have been designed, introducing the block of a log-domain wave port terminator. Using this block, the log-domain wave equivalent of a shunt capacitor is derived as the based structure element. The wave equivalents of other basic elements of the passive prototype are derived as before interchanging its outputs or/and adding voltage inverters. Finally the influence of the non-ideal characteristics of the BJT transistor on the frequency response of the derived filters is analyzed and efficient methods are proposed for their compensation.

This thesis aims to present solutions to improve the performance of SQLite library on mobile systems. In particular, two approaches are presented to add lightweight locking mechanisms to the SQLite library and improve concurrency of the SQLite library on Android operating system. The impact on performance is discussed after each section. Many applications on the Android operating system rely on the SQLite library to store ordered data. However, due to heavy synchronization primitives used by the library, it becomes a performance bottleneck for applications which push large amount of data into the database. Related work in this area also points to SQLite database as one of the factors for limiting performance. With increasing network speeds, the storage system can become a performance bottleneck, as applications download larger amounts of data. The following work in this thesis addresses these issues by providing approaches to increase concurrency and add light-weight locking mechanisms. The factors determining the performance of Application Programming Interfaces provided by SQLite are first gathered from IO traces of common database operations. By analyzing these traces, opportunities for improvements are noticed. An alternative locking mechanism is added to the database file using byte-range locks for fine-grained locking. Its impact on performance is measured using SQLite benchmarks as well as real applications. A multi-threaded benchmark is designed to measure the performance of fine grained locking in multi-threaded applications using common database operations. Recent versions of SQLite use write ahead logs for journaling. We see that writes to this sequential log can occur concurrently, especially in flash drives. By adding a sequencing mechanism for the write ahead log, the writes can proceed simultaneously. The performance of this method is also analyzed using the synthetic benchmarks and multi-threaded benchmarks. By using these mechanisms, the library is observed to gain significant performance for concurrent writes.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

This paper provides an alternative methodology for the analysis of a set of Likert responses measured on a common attitudinal scale when the primary focus of interest is on the relative importance of items in the set. The method makes fewer assumptions about the distribution of the responses than the more usual approaches such as comparisons of means, MANOVA or ordinal data methods. The approach transforms the Likert responses into paired comparison responses between the items. The complete multivariate pattern of responses thus produced can be analysed by an appropriately reformulated paired comparison model. The dependency structure between item responses can also be modelled flexibly. The advantage of this approach is that sets of Likert responses can be analysed simultaneously within the Generalized Linear Model framework, providing standard likelihood based inference for model selection. This method is applied to a recent international survey on the importance of environmental problems. (author's abstract) / Series: Research Report Series / Department of Statistics and Mathematics