This thesis centres on studying intricate bargaining relationships between the major actors in the highly politicised oil industry. By covering the period between 1998 and early 2007, this study focuses exclusively on contemporary bargaining in the oil industry, as it is unfeasible to cover a longer time-span. In the current decade, which unlike previous two cooperative decades, can be characterised as conflictual, and thus politicised, the structure of the oil industry can best be understood by studying bargaining between numerous actors, the main of which are the international oil companies (IOCs), oil-exporting states, oil-importing states, and the national oil companies (NOCs). The central argument is that due to their weak relative bargaining power, the IOCs have been on the losing side in their bargaining with oil exporting countries and/or their NOCs in the current decade when compared to the late 1990s, and thus, we are witnessing the return of the obsolescing bargain.

Innovations in Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) manufacturing processes and architectural design have led to the development of extremely large FPGAs. There has also been a widespread adaptation of these large FPGAs in cloud infrastructures and data centers to accelerate search and machine learning applications. Two important topics related to FPGAs are addressed in this work: on-chip communication and security. On-chip communication is quickly becoming a bottleneck in to- day’s large multi-million gate FPGAs. Hard Networks-on-Chip (NoC), made of fixed silicon, have been shown to provide low power, high speed, flexible on-chip communication. An iterative algorithm for routing pre-scheduled time-division-multiplexed paths in a hybrid NoC FPGA architecture is demonstrated in this thesis work. The routing algorithm is based on the well known Pathfinder algorithm, overcomes several limitations of a previous greedy implementation and successfully routes connections using a higher number of timeslots than greedy approaches. The new algorithm shows an average bandwidth improvement of 11% for unicast traffic and multicast traffic patterns. Regarding on-chip FPGA security, a recent study on covert channel communication in Xilinx FPGA devices has shown information leaking from long interconnect wires into immediate neighboring wires. This information leakage can be used by an attacker in a multi-tenant FPGA cloud infrastructure to non-invasively steal secret information from an unsuspecting user design. It is demonstrated that the information leakage is also present in Intel SRAM FPGAs. Information leakage in Cyclone-IV E and Stratix-V FPGA devices is quantified and characterized with varying parameters, and across different routing elements of the FPGAs.

No description available.

No description available.

Submitted by Caroline Xavier (caroline.xavier@pucrs.br) on 2017-06-30T13:50:31Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DIS_RAMON_COSTI_FERNANDES_COMPLETO.pdf: 4552821 bytes, checksum: 31f78eb686d2c3126cf0abf4584de386 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-30T13:50:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DIS_RAMON_COSTI_FERNANDES_COMPLETO.pdf: 4552821 bytes, checksum: 31f78eb686d2c3126cf0abf4584de386 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-13 / A pr?xima gera??o de sistemas multiprocessados intra-chip, do ingl?s MultiProcessor Systems-on-Chip (MPSoC), comportar? centenas de elementos de processamento num ?nico chip, com a promessa de alta vaz?o de comunica??o, baixa lat?ncia e, preferencialmente, baixo consumo de energia. Devido ? elevada demanda de comunica??o paralela de aplica??es para MPSoCs, a rede intra-chip, do ingl?s Network-on-Chip (NoC), tem sido amplamente adotada como um meio de comunica??o confi?vel e escal?vel para MPSoCs. O espa?o de projeto para NoCs deve ser explorado para atender ? demanda das aplica??es atuais. Dentre os par?metros que definem uma NoC, o algoritmo de roteamento tem sido utilizado para prover servi?os como toler?ncia ? falhas, liberdade de deadlocks e de livelocks, assim como Quality of Service (QoS). Conforme a ado??o e complexidade de Systems-on-Chip (SoC) aumenta para sistemas embarcados, a preocupa??o com a prote??o de dados tamb?m torna-se um requisito para o projeto de MPSoCs. Atualmente, MPSoCs podem ser atacados explorando vulnerabilidades em hardware ou software, sendo o ?ltimo respons?vel por 80% dos incidentes de seguran?a em sistemas embarcados. A prote??o contra vulnerabilidades de software pode acontecer em: (i) N?vel de Aplica??o, utilizando t?cnicas como a criptografia, para evitar a transmiss?o de dados desprotegidos entre os elementos de um MPSoC, conhecidos como m?dulos de propriedade intelectual, do ingl?s Intellectual Property (IP); ou (ii) N?vel de Comunica??o, inspecionando ou filtrando elementos na arquitetura de interconex?o atrav?s de monitores de comunica??o ou firewalls, respectivamente. Portanto, um algoritmo de roteamento, ciente dos requisitos de seguran?a do sistema, deve oferecer prote??o ao utilizar rotas confi?veis na NoC, evitando elementos potencialmente maliciosos em rotas porventura inseguras. A principal contribui??o deste trabalho ? uma t?cnica de prote??o para NoCs que atua em n?vel de comunica??o, adaptando os algoritmos Segment-based Routing (SBR) e Region-based Routing (RBR) para que estes considerem aspectos de seguran?a do sistema, estes caracterizados por zonas de seguran?a definidas na NoC de acordo com o mapeamento de aplica??es nos IPs. A avalia??o da t?cnica de roteamento considera aspectos como a escalabilidade das tabelas de roteamento, a quantidade de rotas seguras definidas entre os IPs, e o impacto desta t?cnica de roteamento em aplica??es do benchmark NASA Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation (NAS) Parallel Bencharm (NPB). / The next generation of MultiProcessor Systems-on-Chip (MPSoC) will encompass hundreds of integrated processing elements into a single chip, with the promise of highthroughput, low latency and, preferably, low energy utilization. Due to the high communication parallelism required by several applications targeting MPSoC architectures, the Network-on-Chip (NoC) has been widely adopted as a reliable and scalable interconnection mechanism. The NoC design space should be explored to meet the demanding requirements of current applications. Among the parameters that define a NoC configuration, the routing algorithm has been employed to provide services such as fault tolerance, deadlock and livelock freedom, as well as Quality of Service (QoS). As the adoption and complexity of System-on-Chip (SoC) increases for embedded systems, the concern for data protection appears as a new design requirement. Currently, MPSoCs can be attacked by exploiting either hardware or software vulnerabilities, with the later responsible for 80% of the security incidents in embedded systems. Protection against software vulnerabilities can occur at (i) Application Level, by using techniques such as data encryption to avoid plain data transmissions between Intellectual Property (IP) modules; or (ii) Communication Level, inspecting or filtering elements at the interconnect fabric with communication monitors or firewalls, respectively. As such, a routing algorithm aware of security requirements could also offer protection utilizing trusted communication paths in the NoC, avoiding potential malicious elements in otherwise unsafe communication paths. The main contribution of this work is a NoC protection technique at communication level by adapting Segment-based Routing (SBR) and Region-based Routing (RBR) algorithms to consider system security requirements, characterized by security zones which are defined on the NoC according to the mapping of applications on IP modules. Evaluation of the proposed routing technique considers aspects such as the scalability of routing tables, the number of secure communication paths, and the impact of this technique on applications of the NASA Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation (NAS) Parallel Benchmark (NPB).

No description available.

Les technologies actuelles permettent l'intégration sur une même puce de systèmes complexes (SoCs) qui sont composés de blocs préconçus (IPs) pouvant être interconnectés grâce à un réseau sur la puce (NoCs). De manière générale, les IPs sont validés par diverses techniques (simulation, test, vérification formelle) et le problème majeur reste la validation des infrastructures des communications. Cette thèse se concentre sur la vérification formelle des réseaux sur puce à l'aide d'un outil de preuve automatique, le démonstrateur de théorèmes ACL2. Un méta-modèle pour les réseaux sur puce a été développé et implémenté dans ACL2. Il satisfait des propriétés de correction générique, conséquences logiques d'un ensemble d'obligations de preuve sur les constituants principaux du réseau (topologie, routage, technique de commutation,...). La preuve de correction pour une instance spécifique de réseau sur puce est alors réduite à la vérification de ces obligations de preuve. Cette thèse poursuit les travaux entrepris dans ce domaine en étendant ce méta-modèle dans plusieurs directions : prise en compte plus fine de la modélisation temporelle, du contrôle de flux, des mécanismes de priorités,... Les résultats sont démontrés sur plusieurs réseaux actuels : Hermes (Université fédérale du Rio Grande do Sul, Brésil et LIRMM) et Nostrum (Royal Institute Of Technology, Suéde).

Submitted by Yarui Dun (yarui0422@gmail.com) on 2017-05-17T19:30:55Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertation Yarui Dun.pdf: 3370034 bytes, checksum: 0971a3c099bb023b78027e1514037a71 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by ÁUREA CORRÊA DA FONSECA CORRÊA DA FONSECA (aurea.fonseca@fgv.br) on 2017-05-18T14:29:11Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertation Yarui Dun.pdf: 3370034 bytes, checksum: 0971a3c099bb023b78027e1514037a71 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-30T17:36:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertation Yarui Dun.pdf: 3370034 bytes, checksum: 0971a3c099bb023b78027e1514037a71 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-05-02 / State capitalism, the statist planning in certain economic sectors, has generated several state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that represent a significant share of activity in the global market. Despite decades of liberalization and privatization in many countries, state ownership and state-led business activity remain widespread; yet new varieties of state capitalism have also emerged. Among these new varieties, state-controlled oil and natural gas entities, also known as nation oil companies (NOCs), represent a type of hybrid organization that specifically deserves scholars’ attention as they dominate the world’s oil & gas industry; yet many of the cases prove to be problematic. The emerging markets possess some of the most important NOC players, yet scant examination has been made to question their appropriateness. This paper presents a contextualized comparison between two NOCs that root in Brazil and China to illustrate how similar and different they are in terms of their ownership style, corporate governance characteristics, and the interactions they have with the host government. We analyzed the findings by matching them with the past theories that offer explanations on NOC performance variation. We concluded that first, regime type is not a dependable factor to indicate the actual state incentives to maintain NOCs, and the goals of state serve only as an equivocate factor in explaining the variation in NOC performances. Secondly, we speculated that due to the absence of a cohesive institutional logic and consistency, Brazil has a fragmented governance system that implies in inappropriateness of state capitalism. Thirdly, we discovered that the unique dynamics between informal and formal institutions in China may justify the better fitness of state capitalism when compared with Brazil. Certain limits to the research method and expectations on further inquiries are also developed.