Relying on computing systems that become increasingly complex is difficult: with many factors potentially affecting the result of a computation or its properties, understanding where problems appear and fixing them is a challenging proposition. Typically, the process of finding solutions is driven by trial and error or by experience-based insights. In this dissertation, I examine the idea of using provenance metadata (the set of elements that have contributed to the existence of a piece of data, together with their relationships) instead. I show that considering provenance a primitive of computation enables the exploration of system behaviour, targeting both retrospective analysis (root cause analysis, performance tuning) and hypothetical scenarios (what-if questions). In this context, provenance can be used as part of feedback loops, with a double purpose: building software that is able to adapt for meeting certain quality and performance targets (semi-automated tuning) and enabling human operators to exert high-level runtime control with limited previous knowledge of a system's internal architecture. My contributions towards this goal are threefold: providing low-level mechanisms for meaningful provenance collection considering OS-level resource multiplexing, proving that such provenance data can be used in inferences about application behaviour and generalising this to a set of primitives necessary for fine-grained provenance disclosure in a wider context. To derive such primitives in a bottom-up manner, I first present Resourceful, a framework that enables capturing OS-level measurements in the context of application activities. It is the contextualisation that allows tying the measurements to provenance in a meaningful way, and I look at a number of use-cases in understanding application performance. This also provides a good setup for evaluating the impact and overheads of fine-grained provenance collection. I then show that the collected data enables new ways of understanding performance variation by attributing it to specific components within a system. The resulting set of tools, Soroban, gives developers and operation engineers a principled way of examining the impact of various configuration, OS and virtualization parameters on application behaviour. Finally, I consider how this supports the idea that provenance should be disclosed at application level and discuss why such disclosure is necessary for enabling the use of collected metadata efficiently and at a granularity which is meaningful in relation to application semantics.

Yes / Daily physical activity is vital for the health and development of children. However, many children are inactive. Previous attempts to achieve sustained increases in daily physical activity in children have been ineffective. Join Us: Move Play (JU:MP) is a whole-system, complex, community-based intervention aiming to increase the physical activity levels of children aged 7 to 11 years who live in areas of Bradford, England, which are multicultural and have high levels of deprivation. The purpose of this quasiexperimental controlled trial is to assess whether the JU:MP program increases primary school children's physical activity. The study has a 2-arm, quasiexperimental, nonblinded, nonequivalent group design and will be conducted with primary school children aged 5 to 11 years at 3 timepoints, including baseline (before intervention), 24 months (during intervention), and 36 months (after intervention). Children attending primary schools within the intervention area will be invited to participate. Children attending similar schools within similar neighborhoods based on school and community census demographics (deprivation, free school meals, and ethnicity) outside of the JU:MP geographical area will be invited to participate in the control condition. At each timepoint, consenting participants will wear an accelerometer for 7 consecutive days (24 hours a day) to measure the primary outcome (average daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity). Multivariable mixed effects linear regression will be applied to estimate differences in the primary outcome between the 2 arms at 24 months and 36 months on an intention-to-treat basis. The secondary outcome analysis will explore changes in socioemotional well-being (teacher reported), quality of life (parental/carer reported), and other contextual factors (parents/carer reported), as well as segments of the day activity, sleep, sedentary screen time, frequency of places to be active, parent practices (nondirective support and autonomy support), social cohesion, and neighborhood walking/exercise environment. Recruitment occurred from July 2021 to March 2022, and baseline data were collected from September 2021 to March 2022. As of March 2022 (end of baseline data collection), a total of 1454 children from 37 schools (17 intervention schools and 20 control schools) have been recruited. The first follow-up data collection will occur from September 2023 to March 2024, and the second and final follow-up data collection will occur from September 2024 to March 2025. Data analysis has not begun, and the final results will be published in December 2025. This article describes the protocol for a quasiexperimental controlled trial examining a novel whole-system intervention. ISRCTN ISRCTN14332797; https://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN14332797. DERR1-10.2196/43619.

<div>Despite the broad diversity of attacks and the many different ways an adversary can exploit a system, each attack can be divided into different phases. These phases include the discovery of a vulnerability in the system, its exploitation and the achieving persistence on the compromised system for (potential) further compromise and future access. Determining the exploitability of a system –and hence the success of an attack– remains a challenging, manual task. Not only because the problem cannot be formally defined but also because advanced protections and mitigations further complicate the analysis and hence, raise the bar for any successful attack. Nevertheless, it is still possible for an attacker to circumvent all of the existing defenses –under certain circumstances.</div><div><br></div><div>In this dissertation, we define and infer the Residual Attack Surface on a system. That is, we expose the limitations of the state-of-the-art mitigations, by showing practical ways to circumvent them. This work is divided into four parts. It assumes an attack with three phases and proposes new techniques to infer the Residual Attack Surface on each stage.</div><div><br></div><div>For the first part, we focus on the vulnerability discovery. We propose FuzzGen, a tool for automatically generating fuzzer stubs for libraries. The synthesized fuzzers are target specific, thus resulting in high code coverage. This enables developers to expose and fix vulnerabilities (that reside deep in the code and require initializing a complex state to trigger them), before they can be exploited. We then move to the vulnerability exploitation part and we present a novel technique called Block Oriented Programming (BOP), that automates data-only attacks. Data-only attacks defeat advanced control-flow hijacking defenses such as Control Flow Integrity. Our framework, called BOPC, maps arbitrary exploit payloads into execution traces and encodes them as a set of memory writes. Therefore an attacker’s intended execution “sticks” to the execution flow of the underlying binary and never departs from it. In the third part of the dissertation, we present an extension of BOPC that presents some measurements that give strong indications of what types of exploit payloads are not possible to execute. Therefore, BOPC enables developers to test what data an attacker would compromise and enables evaluation of the Residual Attack Surface to assess an application’s risk. Finally, for the last part, which is to achieve persistence on the compromised system, we present a new technique to construct arbitrary malware that evades current dynamic and behavioral analysis. The desired malware is split into hundreds (or thousands) of little pieces and each piece is injected into a different process. A special emulator coordinates and synchronizes the execution of all individual pieces, thus achieving a “distributed execution” under multiple address spaces. malWASH highlights weaknesses of current dynamic and behavioral analysis schemes and argues for full-system provenance.</div><div><br></div><div>Our envision is to expose all the weaknesses of the deployed mitigations, protections and defenses through the Residual Attack Surface. That way, we can help the research community to reinforce the existing defenses, or come up with new, more effective ones.</div>

Yes / UK and global policies recommend whole-school approaches to improve childrens' inadequate physical activity (PA) levels. Yet, recent meta-analyses establish current interventions as ineffective due to suboptimal implementation rates and poor sustainability. To create effective interventions, which recognise schools as complex adaptive sub-systems, multi-stakeholder input is necessary. Further, to ensure 'systems' change, a framework is required that identifies all components of a whole-school PA approach. The study's aim was to co-develop a whole-school PA framework using the double diamond design approach (DDDA). Fifty stakeholders engaged in a six-phase DDDA workshop undertaking tasks within same stakeholder (n = 9; UK researchers, public health specialists, active schools coordinators, headteachers, teachers, active partner schools specialists, national organisations, Sport England local delivery pilot representatives and international researchers) and mixed (n = 6) stakeholder groupings. Six draft frameworks were created before stakeholders voted for one 'initial' framework. Next, stakeholders reviewed the 'initial' framework, proposing modifications. Following the workshop, stakeholders voted on eight modifications using an online questionnaire. Following voting, the Creating Active Schools Framework (CAS) was designed. At the centre, ethos and practice drive school policy and vision, creating the physical and social environments in which five key stakeholder groups operate to deliver PA through seven opportunities both within and beyond school. At the top of the model, initial and in-service teacher training foster teachers' capability, opportunity and motivation (COM-B) to deliver whole-school PA. National policy and organisations drive top-down initiatives that support or hinder whole-school PA. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time practitioners, policymakers and researchers have co-designed a whole-school PA framework from initial conception. The novelty of CAS resides in identifying the multitude of interconnecting components of a whole-school adaptive sub-system; exposing the complexity required to create systems change. The framework can be used to shape future policy, research and practice to embed sustainable PA interventions within schools. To enact such change, CAS presents a potential paradigm shift, providing a map and method to guide future co-production by multiple experts of PA initiatives 'with' schools, while abandoning outdated traditional approaches of implementing interventions 'on' schools. / The conference and workshop were jointly funded through an internal Leeds Beckett Research grant, the Yorkshire Sport Foundation and Public Health England (Yorkshire and Humber). Twinkl Educational Publishing kindly sponsored the conference and workshop event. DDB and SEB’s involvement was supported by Sport England’s Local Delivery Pilot – Bradford. DDB and SEB invovlement was also funded by the National Institute for Health Research Yorkshire and Humber ARC (reference: NIHR20016), and the UK Prevention Research Partnership, an initiative funded by UK Research and Innovation Councils, the Department of Health and Social Care (England) and the UK devolved administrations, and leading health research charities. ACR is funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration East Midlands (ARC EM).

Yes / Whole-systems approaches are being adopted to tackle physical inactivity. The mechanisms contributing to changes resulting from whole-systems approaches are not fully understood. The voices of children and families that these approaches are designed for need to be heard to understand what is working, for whom, where and in what context. This paper describes the protocol for the children and families' citizen science evaluation of the Join Us: Move, Play (JU:MP) programme, a whole-systems approach to increasing physical activity in children and young people aged 5-14 years in Bradford, UK. The evaluation aims to understand the lived experiences of children and families' relationship with physical activity and participation in the JU:MP programme. The study takes a collaborative and contributory citizen science approach, including focus groups, parent-child dyad interviews and participatory research. Feedback and data will guide changes within this study and the JU:MP programme. We also aim to examine participant experience of citizen science and the suitability of a citizen science approach to evaluate a whole-systems approach. Data will be analysed using framework approach alongside iterative analysis with and by citizen scientists in the collaborative citizen science study. Ethical approval has been granted by the University of Bradford: study one (E891-focus groups as part of the control trial, E982-parent-child dyad interviews) and study two (E992). Results will be published in peer-reviewed journals and summaries will be provided to the participants, through schools or directly. The citizen scientists will provide input to create further dissemination opportunities.

En ce début de millénaire 1,4 Milliards d'humains, parmi les plus démunis de la planète, vivent dans des sites isolés et ne bénéficient pas de réseaux de distribution d'énergie. Leur besoin en électricité est modeste, mais important en terme d'usages : accès aux soins médicaux et à l'instruction, communication, développement d'économies locales. C'est face à ce constat que Schneider Electric Industries relève, depuis 2009, le défi de concevoir et réaliser des microcentrales solaires thermodynamiques, concurrentielles à d'autres solutions, pour fournir à ces populations une énergie électrique fiable et respectueuse de l'environnement. Inscrit dans le cadre de ce projet, le présent travail - réalisé en Cifre - est séquencé par l'évolution industrielle du projet. Dans un premier temps, un Etat de l'Art, étendu à une analyse de détail, a contribué à privilégier certains choix technologiques : capteurs solaires à concentration, stockage thermique à chaleur sensible et moteur de Stirling. Dans un second temps, une étude thermodynamique préliminaire a permis d'évaluer le dimensionnement d'éléments clefs du système : champ de captage solaire et stockage thermique. En complément une étude de sensibilité paramétrique du dimensionnement et des performances à divers facteurs de pertes énergétiques a souligné les points durs techniques et participé à l'orientation des travaux de conception. Enfin, l'analyse exergétique de fonctionnement de capteurs solaires et d'un moteur Stirling en régimes dynamiques stationnaires proposent des bases pour l'optimisation de contrôle et commande, visant à accroître les performances énéergétiques du système et favoriser sa viabilité thermoéconomique / As a new millenium begins, 1.4 Billion people worldwide earn less than 2 dollars daily and have no access to the power grid. The need of electric power of these people represent small energy amounts but is very important regarding to the usage : acces to healthcare and education, communication, local economic development. In reponse to the situation, since 2009, Schneider Electric Industries takes up the challenge to design and realize micro solar power plants, competitive with other solutions, to supply these people with reliable and environment-friendly electricity. Dealing with this project, this work has been realized under contract, so it follows the development sequence of the industrial project. The first part is a State of the Art of the actual solar thermodynamical technologies. This task is extended to a qualitative evaluation of various technologies, as a contribution to select adapted technologies: concentrating solar thermal receivers, sensible heat thermal storage and Stirling engine. The secon step is a preliminary thermodynamics analysis of the whole system, that allowed to evaluate key features: the size of the solar receivers area, the thermal storage volume, and overall energy performance. This task is streched by a sensitivity analysis of the sizing and performances, according to various energy losses parameters, that shows the technical hard spots of the design. Finally, an exergy-based dynamical analysis of stationary operating solar receivers and Stirling engines leads to a propostion of basis methods and criteria for the optimal control of power, in order to maximize the energy performances of the system and to enhance its competitiveness

One of the parts of the whole system of rehabilitation is also the treatment using horses or so called hiporehabilitation. Thanks to its complex effectivity, it is a unique and irreplaceable therapeutical method. The aim of this work is to prove how hiporehabilitation helps disabled people integration into the society and how it contributes to social contacts improvement of the users.

本論は、まず、複雑系の科学観をベースとした「生命論パラダイム」でのソーシャル・イノベーションを提唱し、自己組織性の理論と京都市での実践をベースに、地域人材が地下茎のようにつながり、相互作用する「地域人材リゾーム」を定義した。そして、そのファーストステップの具体的な手法として筆者が考案した「ZUKANインタビュー」を取り上げ、事例として、札幌市で継続的に取り組まれている「札幌人図鑑」を対象に質的調査およびM-GTAでの分析を行った。これらの考察を通じて、地域に暮らす「凡人」たちの創発による新しい地域社会形成への展望を示した。 / 博士(ソーシャル・イノベーション) / Doctor of Philosophy in Social Innovation / 同志社大学 / Doshisha University

The aim of this study was to determine the impact of appreciative inquiry (AI) on the development of organisational culture after a merger. The empirical study was con-ducted among the employees of a telecommunications company in South Africa. AI was conducted after a merger of teams within a department of the organisation to assist in the development of a new and combined team culture. Interactive qualitative analysis (IQA) was used to determine the impact of AI on the new culture. The sample size for the study was 35 for the AI session and 20 for the IQA. A qualitative approach was adopted in this study in order to understand and explore the experiences of individuals who had recently been a part of the change process. The research design was based on IQA, a structured approach which constructs a systematic representation of the experience. It was found that AI allowed the teams to gain a new understanding of and insight into what it meant to work together as a unit. A significant difference was noted in the IQA facilitation that was performed six months after the AI session. This re-search therefore confirmed that the AI had a significant positive impact on the culture of the organisation under investigation. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M. Com. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

Utifrån att samhället genomgår stora förändringar   och står inför nya utmaningar finns ett behov av förmåga att möta framtiden   på ett nytt sätt. Det ställs nya krav på hur organisationer behöver jobba med   utveckling då transformationen skapar nya beteenden hos oss människor.   Offentlig sektor utmanas precis som andra myndigheter och företag. Ambitionen   med examensarbetet har varit att utforska och beskriva en förändring i stor   skala utifrån ett helhetsperspektiv. En kommunal verksamhet, som i två års tid arbetat   med att åstadkomma en storskalig förändring, har varit föremål för denna   fallstudie. Fallstudien har genomförts genom bland annat djupintervjuer,   workshops och semistrukturerade intervjuer. Analysen har hämtat inspiration   från Kuipers, Higgs, Kickert, Tummers, Grandia, och van der Voets (2013)   rekommendationer till forskning om förändring i offentlig sektor.   Rekommendationerna handlar om att inkludera förändringens kontext, innehåll,   process, resultat och ledarskap. Den förändring studieobjektet genomgår   inkluderar värderingar och kultur, arbetssätt och verktyg och drivs med målet   att öka professionaliseringen, öka graden av personcentrering och för att   etablera ett kontinuerligt lärande. Studiens resultat har visat att flera händelser och   insatser är avgörande i en storskalig förändring mot offensiv   kvalitetsutveckling som stämmer överens med tidigare forskning som   rekommenderar att flera olika modeller och strategier bör användas beroende   på situation. Studiens resultat visar också att framgång kan uppnås genom att   bedriva flera förändringsprocesser parallellt och på kort tid. Tidigare   forskning talar istället om att förändring behöver ta tid. Flera upplevda framgångsfaktorer har identifierats   och de flesta framgångsfaktorerna är inte desamma som lyfts i den tidigare   forskning som studerats. De framgångsfaktorer som är unika för fallstudien   är: modigt ledarskap, systemtänkande, att utgå från kundens fokus istället   för kunden i fokus, användning av teoretiska förändringsmodeller för att   förankra förändringsarbetet, att driva flera förändringsprocesser parallellt   i högt tempo och att inkludera organisationens kontext och historia. Studiens resultat har visat att fallorganiastionens   förändringsprocess kan beskrivas i fjorton steg. Vissa av stegen återfinns i   de teorier som studerats och vissa återfinns inte. Att stegen skiljer sig åt   kan bero på att detaljnivån skiljer sig mellan studiens resultat, som mer   specifik och de teoretiska förändrinsmodellerna, som är mer generella. Hörnstenarna i hörnstensmodellen har utifrån   studiens resultat kunnat sekvenseras i en viss ordning och beskrivas med   olika tyngdpunkt och betoning. Hörnstensmodellen skulle enligt studien kunna   användas som en värderingsmodell i ett storskaligt förändringsarbete men   också utifrån arbetssätt och verktyg. / Society is going   through rapid change and social transformation is taking place. This is a   result of mega trends such as individualization and digitalization. People   are behaving in new ways and our future desires are harder than before to   predict. New business models need to develop both within the private and the   public sector. The ambition with this master thesis has been to take a whole   system perspective and explore and describe a large scale transformation   taking place within a large organization. A case study at   the elderly care within public sector has been made to accomplish the   ambition. The organization which has been studied has purposely been working   with a large scale change program for two years with the determination to   achieve a higher level of professionalism and customer orientation. The   research design has included in-depth interviews, workshops, observations and   semi-structured interviews. The analysis has been inspired from Kuipers,   Higgs, Kickert, Tummers, Grandia, och van der Voets (2013) recommendations to   include context, content, process, result and leadership in change-oriented   research within the public sector. The results from   the case study shows that many different efforts and activites are crucial to   achieve a large scale change implementing TQM. This finding is in line with   previuos reasearch. Another finding from the case study, that differs from   previous research, is many simultaneously initiatives and efforts managed in   a relatively short time seems to be a success factor for large scale change   in large organizations and complex systems. Previous research says in   contradiction that change needs time. Many more perceived   success factors was identified. Some of them are slightly similar to previous   research but many of the findings are not found in theories studied. Critical   success factors uniqe for this case study are: courageous leadership, systems   thinking, a perspective taken from the customers point of view instead of a   customer oriented perspective, the practical use of theorethical change   models, many change projects simultaneously driven in a fast speed and the   organisations history of change projects included as well as the   organisations unique context. The findings from   the case study also shows a change process that can be described in fourteen   steps. Some of these steps are found in the change management theories and   others are not. The descpription of the steps from this case study are   somewhat more detailed and related to the context whereas the theoretical   change models have a more general characteristic. The change   process was also viewed through the TQM-model named The corner stone model,   and this showed that the cornerstones can be sequenced in a certain order   based on the results of the study. The stones can also be described with   different highlighting due to the change context. Different emphasis and   content among the cornerstones could also been seen. The corner stone model   could, accoring to this case study, could therfore be used as a value model   in large scale change, but also as a change model for working ways and tools. / <p>2017-06-28</p>