This research is concerned with the reliable delivery of scalable compressed data over lossy communication channels. Recent works proposed several strategies for assigning optimal code redundancies to elements of scalable data, which form a linear structure of dependency, under the assumption that all source elements are encoded onto a common group of network packets. Given large data and small network packets, such schemes require very long channel codes with high computational complexity. In networks with high loss, small packets are more desirable than long packets. The first contribution of this thesis is to propose a strategy for optimally assigning elements of the scalable data to clusters of packets, subject to constraints on packet size and code complexity. Given a packet cluster arrangement, the scheme then assigns optimal code redundancies to the source elements, subject to a constraint on transmission length. Experimental results show that the proposed strategy can outperform the previous code assignment schemes subject to the above-mentioned constraints, particularly at high channel loss rates. Secondly, we modify these schemes to accommodate complex structures of dependency. Source elements are allocated to clusters of packets according to their dependency structure, subject to constraints on packet size and channel codeword length. Given a packet cluster arrangement, the proposed schemes assign optimal code redundancies to the source elements, subject to a constraint on transmission length. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed strategies for correctly modelling the dependency structure. The last contribution of this thesis is to propose a scheme for optimizing protection of scalable data where limited retransmission is possible. Previous work assumed that retransmission is not possible. For most real-time or interactive applications, however, retransmission of lost data may be possible up to some limit. In the present work we restrict our attention to streaming sources (e.g., video) where each source element can be transmitted in one or both of two time slots. An optimization algorithm determines the transmission and level of protection for each source element, using information about the success of earlier transmissions. Experimental results confirm the benefit of limited retransmission.

Churchill’s plays incorporate intensity, complexity, and imagination to create a theatrical landscape that is rich in danger and possibility. Examining her plays through the theoretical lens of Antonin Artaud’s “theater of cruelty” allows an open investigation into the way that violence, transgression, and theatricality function in her work to create powerful and thought-provoking pieces of theatre. By creating her own contemporary “theater of cruelty,” Churchill creates plays that actively and violently transgress physical, social, and political boundaries. This paper examines three of Churchill’s plays spanning over thirty years of her career to investigate the different ways Churchill has used concepts of Artaudian cruelty to layer and complicate the theatrical experience, and each offers a different vision of a modern “theater of cruelty.” A Mouthful of Birds provides a starting point for exploring Artaudian concepts in connection to her work and uses physical, embodied cruelty as a catalyst through which the characters must come to terms with their subjectivity in a system which has allocated their rightful “place” in society. Hotel incorporates the same magnitude of cruelty into everyday rituals and mundane actions, and an Artaudian reading reveals the way in which an ‘invisible’ cruelty acts on both the characters and the audience as a form of erasure through which the “vanished” characters “signal through the flames” in an attempt to re-assert their subjectivity. In Seven Jewish Children, Churchill inverts the cruelty and re-enacts onstage the Artaudian ‘double’ of the terror occurring during the Gaza conflict in order to force the characters and audience into a direct relationship with the cruelty. Using Artaud as a framework through which to investigate Churchill’s work foregrounds the way in which the interplay of cruelty rips apart the commonly accepted cultural norms on which our understanding of the world is based and opens complex and multi-faceted possibilities of interpretation and understanding that are absolutely necessary for investigating the intensity of the theatrical experience in her plays.

Recently, erasure networks have received significant attention in the literature as they are used to model both wireless and wireline packet-switched networks. Many packet-switched data networks like wireless mesh networks, the Internet, and Peer-to-peer networks can be modeled as erasure networks. In any erasure network, path diversity works by setting up multiple parallel connections between the end points using the topological path redundancy of the network. Our analysis of diversity over erasure networks studies the problem of rate allocation (RA) across multiple independent paths, coding over erasure channels, and the trade-off between rate and diversity gain in three consecutive chapters. In the chapter 2, Forward Error Correction (FEC) is applied across multiple independent paths to enhance the end-to-end reliability. We prove that the probability of irrecoverable loss (P_E) decays exponentially with the number of paths. Furthermore, the RA problem across independent paths is studied. Our objective is to find the optimal RA, i.e. the allocation which minimizes P_E. Using memoization technique, a heuristic suboptimal algorithm with polynomial runtime is proposed for RA over a finite number of paths. This algorithm converges to the asymptotically optimal RA when the number of paths is large. For practical number of paths, the simulation results demonstrate the close-to-optimal performance of the proposed algorithm. Chapter 3 addresses the problem of lower-bounding the probability of error (PE) for any block code over an input-independent channel. We derive a lower-bound on PE for a general input-independent channel and find the necessary and sufficient condition to meet this bound with equality. The rest of this chapter applies this lower-bound to three special input-independent channels: erasure channel, super-symmetric Discrete Memoryless Channel (DMC), and q-ary symmetric DMC. It is proved that Maximum Distance Separable (MDS) codes achieve the minimum probability of error over any erasure channel (with or without memory). Chapter 4 addresses a fundamental trade-off between rate and diversity gain of an end-to-end connection in erasure networks. We prove that there exist general erasure networks for which any conventional routing strategy fails to achieve the optimum diversity-rate trade-off. However, for any general erasure graph, we show that there exists a linear network coding strategy which achieves the optimum diversity-rate trade-off. Unlike the previous works which suggest the potential benefit of linear network coding in the error-free multicast scenario (in terms of the achievable rate), our result demonstrates the benefit of linear network coding in the erasure single-source single-destination scenario (in terms of the diversity gain).

Recently, erasure networks have received significant attention in the literature as they are used to model both wireless and wireline packet-switched networks. Many packet-switched data networks like wireless mesh networks, the Internet, and Peer-to-peer networks can be modeled as erasure networks. In any erasure network, path diversity works by setting up multiple parallel connections between the end points using the topological path redundancy of the network. Our analysis of diversity over erasure networks studies the problem of rate allocation (RA) across multiple independent paths, coding over erasure channels, and the trade-off between rate and diversity gain in three consecutive chapters. In the chapter 2, Forward Error Correction (FEC) is applied across multiple independent paths to enhance the end-to-end reliability. We prove that the probability of irrecoverable loss (P_E) decays exponentially with the number of paths. Furthermore, the RA problem across independent paths is studied. Our objective is to find the optimal RA, i.e. the allocation which minimizes P_E. Using memoization technique, a heuristic suboptimal algorithm with polynomial runtime is proposed for RA over a finite number of paths. This algorithm converges to the asymptotically optimal RA when the number of paths is large. For practical number of paths, the simulation results demonstrate the close-to-optimal performance of the proposed algorithm. Chapter 3 addresses the problem of lower-bounding the probability of error (PE) for any block code over an input-independent channel. We derive a lower-bound on PE for a general input-independent channel and find the necessary and sufficient condition to meet this bound with equality. The rest of this chapter applies this lower-bound to three special input-independent channels: erasure channel, super-symmetric Discrete Memoryless Channel (DMC), and q-ary symmetric DMC. It is proved that Maximum Distance Separable (MDS) codes achieve the minimum probability of error over any erasure channel (with or without memory). Chapter 4 addresses a fundamental trade-off between rate and diversity gain of an end-to-end connection in erasure networks. We prove that there exist general erasure networks for which any conventional routing strategy fails to achieve the optimum diversity-rate trade-off. However, for any general erasure graph, we show that there exists a linear network coding strategy which achieves the optimum diversity-rate trade-off. Unlike the previous works which suggest the potential benefit of linear network coding in the error-free multicast scenario (in terms of the achievable rate), our result demonstrates the benefit of linear network coding in the erasure single-source single-destination scenario (in terms of the diversity gain).

Une large quantité de données personnelles sont partagées en temps réel par des utilisateurs en ligne, utilisant de plus en plus des terminaux mobiles avec connexion sans-fil. L'industrie s'efforce d'accumuler et d'analyser ces données pour fournir de nouveaux services ou des améliorations. La recherche fournit un effort équivalent pour permettre de traiter ces données de façon sécurisée et protectrice de la vie privée. Les problèmes de performance des communications temps réels sur terminaux mobiles sur un canal sans-fil sont aussi étudiés. Les codes à effacement sont un moyen courant d'améliorer ces performances. Le secret sharing est un mécanisme permettant de partager des données privées, ne les révélant qu'à un groupe d'utilisateur choisi. Dans cette thèse, nous lions théoriquement les secret sharing schemes et les codes à effacement, pour fournir une source plus riche de solutions aux deux problèmes. Notre objectif est de fournir des solutions ayant le niveau de sécurité souhaité, tout en restant efficace et implémentable. Les contributions de cette thèse sont les suivantes. Nous évaluons l'applicabilité d'une nouvelle classe de codes à effacements à Maximum Distance Séparable (MDS) pour transférer du contenu temps réel à des terminaux mobiles, et nous démontrons que le code systématique réduit grandement la complexité d'exécution et la taille nécessaire des tampons en comparaison du code non systématique, faisant de lui un bon candidat pour une application mobile. Nous proposons un nouveau Layered secret sharing scheme pour le partage en temps réel de données sur des réseaux sociaux (OSNs pour Online Social Network). Le procédé permet de partager automatiquement un profile dans un groupe défini dans un OSN, en utilisant un multi-secret sharing scheme formé de multiples couches. Le procédé ne dépend nullement d'un tiers de confiance. Comparé à un partage simple de chaque attributs (pouvant être un texte, une image ou une vidéo), le procédé ne divulgue aucune information à propos de ce qui est partagé, pas même le nombre de ceux-ci, et il induit une augmentation relativement faible du temps de calcul et des données à envoyer. Finalement, nous étudions les liens entre les codes MDS et les secret sharing schemes, ayant pour motivation l'inefficacité du très populaire Shamir secret sharing scheme. Nous établissons les liens théoriques entre les deux domaines et nous proposons une nouvelle construction de strong ramp schemes à partir de codes MDS. Ceci permet d'utiliser les codes MDS existants et efficaces pour des applications de partage de secret et de calculs distribués et sécurisés. Nous évaluons et montrons une réduction significative de temps de calcul et du coût de communication en utilisant un strong ramp scheme, en comparaison avec le procédé de Shamir. / Data from both individuals and companies is increasingly aggregated and analysed to provide new and improved services. There is a corresponding research effort to enable processing of such data in a secure and privacy preserving way, in line with the increasing public concerns and more stringent regulatory requirements for the protection of such data. Secure Multi-Party Computation (MPC) and secret sharing are mechanisms that can enable both secure distribution and computations on private data. In this thesis, we address the inefficiencies of these mechanisms by utilising results from a theoretically related rich area, erasure codes. We derive links between erasure codes and secret sharing, and use Maximum Distance Separable (MDS) codes as a basis to provide real-time applications relying on private user's data, revealing this data only to the selected group (which can be empty). The thesis has three contributions. A new class of erasure code called on-the-fly coding, have been introduced for their improvements in terms of recovery delay and achievable capacity. However little is known about the complexity of the systematic and non-systematic variants of this code, notably for live multicast transmission of multimedia content which is their ideal use case. The evaluation of both variants demonstrate that the systematic code outperforms the non-systematic one in regard to both the buffer sizes and the computation complexity. Then, we propose a new Layered secret sharing scheme and its application to Online Social Network (OSN). In current OSN, access to the user's profile information is managed by the service provider based on a limited set of rules. The proposed scheme enables automated profile sharing in OSN's groups with fine grained privacy control, via a multi-secret sharing scheme comprising of layered shares, without relying on a trusted third party. We evaluate the security of the scheme and the resulting profile's level of protection in an OSN scenario. Finally, after showing that erasure codes are efficient for real-time applications and that the security offered by secret sharing schemes can be applied to real-case applications, we derive the theoretical links between MDS codes and secret sharing to enable the implementation of efficient secret sharing scheme built from MDS codes. To illustrate this efficiency, we implement two of these schemes and evaluate their benefits in regard to computation and communication costs in an MPC application.

Aujourd’hui la sauvegarde des données est une solution indispensable pour éviter de les perdre. Plusieurs méthodes et stratégies de sauvegarde existent et utilisent différents types de support. Les méthodes de sauvegarde les plus efficaces exigent souvent des frais d’abonnement au service liés aux coûts du matériel et de l’administration investis par les fournisseurs. Le grand succès des réseaux P2P et des applications de partage de fichiers a rendu ces réseaux exploitables par un grand nombre d’applications surtout avec la possibilité de partager les ressources des utilisateurs entre eux. Les limites des solutions de sauvegarde classiques qui ne permettent pas le passage à l’échelle ont rendu les réseaux P2P intéressants pour les applications de sauvegarde. L’instabilité dans les réseaux P2P due au taux élevé de mouvement des pairs, rend la communication entre les pairs très difficile. Dans le contexte de la sauvegarde, la communication entre les nœuds est indispensable, ce qui exige une grande organisation dans le réseau. D’autre part, la persistance des données sauvegardées dans le réseau reste un grand défi car la sauvegarde n’a aucun intérêt si les données sauvegardées sont perdues et que la restauration devient impossible. L’objectif de notre thèse est d’améliorer l’organisation des sauvegardes dans les réseaux P2P et de garantir la persistance des données sauvegardées. Nous avons donc élaboré une approche de planification qui permet aux nœuds de s’organiser dans le but de mieux communiquer entre eux. D’autre part, pour garantir la persistance des données sauvegardées, nous avons proposé une approche de calcul probabiliste qui permet de déterminer, selon les variations dans le système, le nombre de répliques nécessaire pour qu’au moins une copie persiste dans le système après un certain temps défini. Nos approches ont été implémentées dans une application de sauvegarde P2P. / Nowadays, data backup is an essential solution to avoid losing data. Several backup methods and strategies exist. They use different media types. Most efficient backup methods are not free due to the cost of hardware and administration invested by suppliers. The great success of P2P networks and file sharing applications has encouraged the use of these networks in multiple applications especially with the possibility of sharing resources between network users. The limitations of traditional backup solutions in large scale networks have made P2P networks an interesting solution for backup applications. Instability in P2P networks due to peers’ high movement rate makes communication between these peers very difficult. To achieve data backup, communications between peers is essential and requires a network organization. On the other hand, the persistence of backed up data in the network remains a major challenge. Data backup is useless if backed up copies are lost. The objective of this thesis is to improve the backup organization and ensure backed up data persistence in P2P networks. We have therefore developed a planning approach that allows nodes to organize themselves in order to better communicate with each other. On the other hand, to ensure data persistency, we proposed a probabilistic approach to compute the minimum replicas number needed for a given data so that at least one copy remains in the system after a given time. Our two approaches have been implemented in a P2P backup application.

Orientador: Marcelo Firer / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Matemática Estatística e Computação Científica / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-23T13:47:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Lemes_LeandroCruvinel_D.pdf: 1250342 bytes, checksum: e1a6a639b2a96ae11f0c70d7507040aa (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / Resumo: Considerando canais discretos, sem memória e com apagamento, obtemos limitantes superiores e inferiores para as probabilidades de erro de decodificação e de ocorrências de ambiguidade de códigos corretores de erro lineares. Os limitantes dependem da hierarquia de pesos e dos espectros generalizados e melhoram os limitantes conhecidos. Encontramos expressões exatas para essas probabilidades nos casos em que o código é AMDS ou MDS / Abstract: Considering an erasure channel, we improve upper and lower bounds for error decoding and ambiguity probabilities of linear error-correcting codes. The given bounds depend on the generalized weight hierarchy and spectrum of a code. We find explicit formulae in the case of AMDS and MDS codes / Doutorado / Matematica / Doutor em Matemática

This study focuses on Berni Searle’s art, in which she searches for alternative figurations of identity. For Searle, identity as a category seems insufficient, as it cannot account for individuals of mixed heritage. Searle’s body of work testifies to an attempt to position and locate herself and marginalised subjects within post-apartheid South Africa. History, tradition, culture, race and gender are pivotal to Searle’s visual examination of her body and her identity, as these inscribe the subject at both symbolic and physical levels. Identity was investigated within South African context and the contexts of various postcolonial, postmodern and feminist debates. Searle’s works were investigated revealing nomadic subjectivity, as philosophised about by Gilles Deleuze and theorised about by Rosi Braidotti. Nomadic subjectivity promotes the notion that identity is fluid and located in the interstitial spaces between dichotomies and various debates. The habitation of such liminal spaces in the interstices between binary oppositions and views relates to what Homi Bhabha has defined as the “third space” and the notion of hybridity. Searle constructs her identity by affixing disparate aspects of her self. This is a continuous process whereby the artist inserts and erases her body. Searle’s works are investigated by using the film as a format. In Cinema 1: the movement-image (1986) Deleuze outlined three core cinematic elements, namely the frame, shot and montage, which are employed in an attempt to investigate the various processes at work in Searle’s artistic production. In addition to this, these filmic components were considered for their conceptual implications both in terms of the medium of film and symbolically. The concept of time, as discussed in Cinema 2: the time-image (1989) was utilised to investigate the implications of time for the nomadic subject and the notion of memory. Copyright 2005, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: Adendorff, A 2005, Nomadic figurations of identity on the work of Berni Searle, MA dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-12072005-161121 / > / Dissertation (M (Visual Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Visual Arts / unrestricted

<div>The demand for global video has been burgeoning across industries. With the expansion and improvement of video-streaming services, cloud-based video is evolving into a necessary feature of any successful business for reaching internal and external audiences. Over-the-top (OTT) video streaming, e.g., Netfix and YouTube, has been dominating the global IP traffic in recent years. More than 50% of OTT video traffic are now delivered through content distribution networks (CDNs). Even though multiple solutions have been proposed for improving congestion in the CDN system, managing the ever-increasing traffic requires a fundamental understanding of the system and the different design fexibilities (control knobs) to make the best use of the hardware limitations. In Addition, there is no analytical understanding for the key quality of experience (QoE) attributes (stall duration, average quality, etc.) for video streaming when transmitted using CDN-based multi-tier infrastructure, which is the focus of this thesis. The key contribution of this thesis is to provide a white-box analytical understanding of the key QoE attributes of the enduser in cloud storage systems, which can be used to systematically address the choppy user experience and have optimized system designs. The rst key design involves the scheduling strategy, that chooses the subset of CDN servers to obtain the content. The second key design involves the quality of each video chunk. The third key design involves deciding which contents to cache at the edge routers and which content needs to be stored at the CDN. Towards solving these challenges, this dissertation is divided into three parts. Part 1 considers video streaming over distributed systems where the video segments are encoded using an erasure code for better reliability. Part 2 looks at the problem of optimizing the tradeoff between quality and stall of the streamed videos. In Part 3, we consider caching partial contents of the videos at the CDN as well as at the edge-routers to further optimize video streaming services. We present a model for describing a today's representative multi-tier system architecture</div><div>for video streaming applications, typically composed of a centralized origin server, several CDN sites and edge-caches. Our model comprehensively considers the following factors: limited caching spaces at the CDN sites and edge-routers, allocation of CDN for a video request, choice of different ports from the CDN, and the central storage and bandwidth allocation. With this model, we optimize different quality of experience (QoE) measures and present novel, yet efficient, algorithms to solve the formulated optimization problems. Our extensive simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithms signicantly outperform the state-of-the-art strategies. We take one step further and implement a small-scale video streaming system in a real cloud environment, managed by Openstack, and validate our results</div>

Tato diplomová práce představuje model a prototyp kooperativního distributivního systému zálohování dat založeném na P2P komunikační síti. Návrh systému umožňuje uživatelům přispět svým lokálním volným místem na disku do systému výměnou za spolehlivé úložiště jejich dat u jiných uživatelů. Představené řešení se snaží splnit požadavky uživatelů na ukládání dat, zároveň však také řeší, jak se vypořádat s mírou nepředvídatelnosti uživatelů  ohledně poskytování volného místa. To je prováděno dvěma způsoby - využitím Reed - Solomon kódů a zároveň také tím, že poskytuje možnost nastavení parametrů dostupnosti. Jedním z těchto parametrů je časový rozvrh, který značí, kdy uživatel může nabídnout předvídatelný přínos do systému. Druhý parametr se týká spolehlivosti konkrétního uživatele v rámci jeho slíbeného časového úseku. Systém je schopen najít synchronizaci ukládaných dat na základě těchto parametrů. Práce se zaměřuje rovněž na řešení zabezpečení systému proti širšímu spektru možných útoků. Hlavním cílem je publikovat koncept a prototyp. Jelikož se jedná o relativně nové řešení, je důležitá také zpětná vazba od široké veřejnosti, která může produkt používat. Právě jejich komentáře a připomínky jsou podnětem pro další vývoj systému.