published_or_final_version / abstract / Electrical and Electronic Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Electrical and Electronic Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

This dissertation considers repetition phenomena in Hindi-English bilingual discourse. Through analysis of everyday Hindi-English conversations, I demonstrate that code-switching and related bilingual phenomena systematically expand options bilingual speakers have for structuring discourse, managing interactions, and making linguistic and social meaning. The systematicity and strategy of Hindi-English code-switching are particularly apparent in what I term bilingual repetition. In bilingual repetition, the semantic content of an utterance in one language is repeated in another language, usually in close proximity to the first occurrence. Bilingual repetition is encountered throughout South Asian multilingual contexts ranging from casual conversations to printed advertisements to Bollywood dialogues. I also consider repetition as a discourse-level areal feature of South Asia. Both monolingual and bilingual repetition phenomena offer an opportunity to investigate alternatives for making meaning both within and across languages due to the side-by-side presentation of semantically and formally related messages. Ultimately, code-switching and repetition in Hindi-English bilingual discourse emerge as practices that both create and reflect linguistic and social simultaneity. / text

This study casts the code-switching patterns observed among Spanish-English bilinguals in Bayside, Texas within the framework of Bell’s (1984) theory of audience design, which is claimed to apply to both monolingual style-shifting as well as bilingual code-switching. The latter part of this claim has been little explored. The intent of this study, then, is to determine if the explanatory power of audience design, as demon¬strated in studies on style-shifting, does indeed hold when applied to cases of language alternation. Analysis of the data from Bayside generally supports Bell’s theory as it shows speakers adjusting their use of Spanish and/or English to suit their audience. The study will highlight a less frequently analyzed aspect of Bell’s model, i.e., the role of the auditor, and will call for the auditor to be classified as a primary influencer of lin¬guistic choice in bilingual contexts, alongside the addressee. The code selection patterns exhibited by a pair of Bayside residents in a series of interviews and in conversations videotaped at the local general store will be com¬pared to illustrate the effects of addressee and auditor. A qualitative analysis will dem¬onstrate that differing determinations regarding the linguistic repertoires of the auditors led to contrasting linguistic choices on the part of the study’s subjects. The data collected will show that, when selecting a language of communication, as opposed to a register, style, or dialect, a speaker may be more greatly affected by an auditor than by the addressee. The methods used in collecting the data will also support an expan¬sion of Bell’s model to include an additional participant category suitable for capturing the effect of the recording device, as per Wertheim (2006). / text

The “Software as a Service” model in service-oriented computing allows loosely coupled software components to be designed and integrated with other software systems. Web services, together with service-oriented architectures, are promising integration technology to facilitate legacy system Webification. However, since most components in a legacy system were not designed and developed as services, the current software systems need to be converted into a set of loosely coupled services. Therefore, a service-oriented software reengineering process is essential for legacy systems to survive in the service-oriented computing environment. In this service-oriented software reengineering process, understanding, decomposing and reusing legacy code turn to be important activities. In this thesis, a methodology for Service-Oriented Software Reengineering (SOSR) is proposed to support the identification, extraction and integration of reusable legacy code. According to both the result of legacy system assessment and a service-oriented analysis and design process, a reengineering decision is made by proposed rules. Based on the service-oriented software reengineering decision, ontologies for SOSR, which consists of Domain Concept Ontology (DCO), Functionality Ontology (FO) and Software Component Ontology (SCO), are developed by the ontology development methodologies. These ontologies store knowledge on both application domain and code entities, which support further legacy code analysis. The identification of service candidates in legacy systems is achieved by mapping FO and SCO via a novel method combining Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) and Relational Concept Analysis (RCA). After the service candidates are identified, the reusable legacy code is extracted by dependency analysis and program slicing. Some rules are defined in code query language for the detection of dead code. Program slicing techniques are applied as main reverse engineering techniques to recover executable legacy code. An Executable Union Slicing (EUS) algorithm is defined to generate executable legacy components with high cohesion and low coupling properties. In the integration phase, extracted legacy components with core legacy code can either be wrapped into Web services for the service orchestration in the business layer, or be composed in a software service provider. The proposed SOSR methodology is proved flexible and practical to migrate legacy applications to service-oriented architectures by the case studies. It can be customised according to different legacy systems. This methodology can help software developers and maintainers to reengineer the tightly coupled legacy information systems to the loosely coupled and agile information systems.

Commodity computer systems today do not provide system support for privacy. As a result, given the creation of new leak opportunities by ever-increasing software complexity, leaks of private data are inevitable. This thesis presents Suliban and Lacuna, two systems that allow programs to execute privately on commodity hardware. These systems demonstrate different points in a design space wherein stronger privacy guarantees can be traded for greater system usability. Suliban uses trusted computing technology to run computation-only code privately; we refer to this protection as "cloaking". In particular, Suliban can run malicious computations in a way that is resistant to analysis. Suliban uses the Trusted Platform Module and processor late launch to create an execution environment entirely disjoint from normal system software. Suliban uses a remote attestation protocol to demonstrate to a malware distribution platform that the environment has been correctly created before the environment is allowed to receive a malicious payload. Suliban's execution outside of standard system software allows it to resist attackers with privileged operating system access and those that can perform some forms of physical attack. However, Suliban cannot access system services, and requires extra case-by-case measures to get outside information like the date or host file contents. Nonetheless, we demonstrate that Suliban can run computations that would be useful in real malware. In building Suliban, we uncover which defenses are most effective against it and highlight current problems with the use of the Trusted Platform Module. Lacuna instead aims at achieving forensic deniability, which guarantees that an attacker that gains full control of a system after a computation has finished cannot learn answers to even binary questions (with a few exceptions) about the computation. This relaxation of Suliban's guarantees allows Lacuna to run full-featured programs concurrently with non-private programs on a system. Lacuna's key primitive is the ephemeral channel, which allows programs to use peripherals while maintaining forensic deniability. This thesis extends the original Lacuna work by investigating how Linux kernel statistics leak private session information and how to mitigate these leaks. / text

Les deux codes de lois de l'époque babylonienne ancienne consacrent plusieurs rubriques à la nipûtum, elles ont été transcrites, traduites et commentées à de multiples reprises. D’autre part, des dizaines de textes éparpillés, auxquels il n'est fait que de vagues allusions dans les commentaires, abordent le même sujet; chaque fois qu'ils sont cités, ils ne le sont que parce qu'ils peuvent éclairer un peu le sens des codes . Nous avons décidé d'agir en sens contraire de la recherche traditionnelle et de proposer une définition de la nipûtum grâce aux textes de la pratique . Les codes semblent en effet traiter de l'anormal plutôt que du normal . La nipûtum n'y est définie qu'en termes d'abus : saisie non justifiée ou mauvais traitements pouvant entraîner la mort de la personne saisie . De plus, ils ne parlent de la nipûtum qu'en cas de dettes et seulement pour des opérations entre particuliers, mettant face à face un banquier tout puissant et un citoyen pauvre en difficulté . L'institution des nipûtum se met tout d'abord en valeur par sa grande extension chronologique, elle est présente dès le début des dynasties amorrites jusqu’au dernier roi de Babylone, soit pendant trois siècles . En ce qui concerne la répartition géographique, elle est en usage dans l'ensemble de la Mésopotamie, du nord au sud, de Sippar à Ur, et d'est en ouest, même dans des zones tout à fait éloignées, comme Mari . La nipûtum se rencontre dans une multitude de faits de société : les dettes, le payement des loyers, les travaux à exécuter, la fourniture de travailleurs, de matériel, les obligations vis-à-vis de l'administration, les attributions de champs comme privilèges … elle peut être revendiquée à peu près dans tous les contextes et tous les faits de la vie privée ou publique . Le terme prend donc un aspect universel dans ses applications . Cet aspect se constate également dans les catégories de personnes concernées : on passe du petit endetté à l'employé moyen, qui a des problèmes dans les faveurs que lui accorde l'administration, de l’artisan au fonctionnaire royal, sans oublier le soldat ou la princesse, chacun en ce qui concerne ses affaires privées ou ses fonctions, la différence entre les deux n'étant pas toujours aisée à établir. On peut voir la nipûtum affecter différentes catégories de fonctionnaires, du modeste jusqu'au plus élévé : celui qui d'habitude inflige les saisies de nipûtum à ses collègues subit le même sort . Il est aussi intéressant de constater que le marchand, pourvoyeur habituel de garanties nipûtum, y est soumis à son tour, comme revers de ses propres obligations, . La possibilité de s’octroyer des garanties nipûtum semble donc attribuée à quiconque, dans n'importe quelle situation, dans ses rapports avec ses concitoyens, dans sa fonction, que celle-ci soit ou non liée à l'administration . Contrairement aux idées reçues, la nipûtum n’est pas seulement constituée d’êtres humains, famille ou esclaves du « débiteur » : divers animaux (le code de Hammu-rabi cite un boeuf) ou des objets provenant du patrimoine du « débiteur » sont attestés . Nous nous sommes également attaché à essayer de déterminer le moment où entre en action la nipûtum : il apparaît qu'elle intervient uniquement en cas de problème et lorsque quelqu'un s'estime lésé . Dans le domaine des dettes, c'est à l'échéance que le créancier, constatant qu'il n'est pas payé comme il devrait l'être, a recours aux nipûtum . Dans tous les autres cas, retard pour d'autres payements -loyers de toutes sortes- absence de réponse à une convocation, pour un travail non fait ou mal exécuté, un abus dans l'utilisation de droits, notamment quant à l'usage des terres royales, les garanties nipûtum apparaissent dès qu’on décèle le méfait . Un seul contrat en prévoit l’existence, nous ne pouvons en estimer la portée, exceptionnelle ou survivance unique d’une démarche habituelle. Bref, la nipûtum semble n'exister que lorsqu'une faute a été commise, soit que cette faute est évidente, soit qu'elle a été dénoncée par celui qui s'estime à tort ou à raison lésé dans l'affaire .

<p>After several scandals in the US, the focus on corporate governance has increased rapidly and led to implementations of “codes of best practice” in many countries. In 2002, the Swedish government appointed a committee with the purpose to develop a Swedish Code of Corporate Governance. The purpose with the code is to help the Swedish industry to regain its confidence in order to attract capital after the scandals that have occurred. The code shall be implemented by Swedish com-panies listed on the A-list on the Stockholm stock exchange and companies on the O-list with a market value above 3 billion SEK and shall be implemented by the 1:st of July 2005.</p><p>The code is based on the principle “comply or explain” which means that companies do not have to comply with the requirements of the code as long as they explain their reasons why they deviate. The purpose of this thesis is thereby to examine to what extent Swedish companies prepare to comply or are already complying with the requirements of the code and the reasons for possible deviations regarding the level of compliance between the companies. In order to answer the purpose stated, the authors have chosen to use both a quantitative and a qualitative method. The authors have sent surveys to all companies obliged to implement the code in order to find out to what extent the Swedish companies prepare to comply or are already complying with the code today. In order to answer the second research question, why companies prepare to comply, or are complying to different degrees, hypotheses were stated and interviews with five companies listed on the Stockholm stock exchange were made.</p><p>The authors found a high compliance rate among Swedish companies, with a mean of 88,49%. The companies on the A-list are complying to a larger extent than the ones on the O-list. Based on the hypotheses, the authors found that companies with higher turnovers are more likely to comply with the code to a larger extent than companies with lower turnovers. Additional reasons to a high degree of compliance rate with the code, are: the need for resources, the impact of media, the culture and personal values within the organization and the fact that the code does not imply any major changes for the organization. Reasons why companies do not prepare to comply or are already complying to a large extent are: the increased devotion of resources that the implementation requires, the high level of details and the complicated requirements of the code. These last-mentioned factors lead to difficulties to interpret the requirements of the code and increased bureaucracy, which thereby lead to a lower level of compliance.</p>