Resilient and exposure-resilient functions are functions whose output appears random even if some portion of their input is either revealed or fixed. We explore an alternative way of characterizing these objects that ties them explicitly to the theory of randomness extractors and simplifies current proofs of basic results. We also describe the inclusions and separations governing the various classes of resilient and exposure-resilient functions. Using this knowledge, we explore the possibility of improving existing constructions of these functions and prove that one specific method of doing so is impossible.

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The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty (NLCHP, 2007) recently reported that there were 1.3 million homeless children living in the United States. The voices of homeless children and youth are often silent, as the literature generally reflects their experiences only indirectly, as related by care givers or social service providers. In contrast, this study provides firsthand accounts of the difficulties encountered by children and youth who struggle to complete their educations while being homeless. This qualitative case study examines the personal and educational experiences of seven adults who had been homeless as children or youth and who graduated from high school or earned their General Education Development (GED) equivalents. Two research questions framing this study were: 1. What do the voices of adults who received a high school diploma or GED tell us about their life experiences as a homeless student? 2. What do the voices of adults who received a high school diploma or GED tell us about their educational experiences as a homeless student? Purposeful sampling was used to locate participants. The population of this study was culturally diverse and included African American and European American individuals currently between the ages of 18 and 51 years. Data was generated via interviews using a protocol designed by the author. This instrument included both fixed and open-ended questions designed to allow participants the opportunity to share their educational and personal experiences. Various forms of documents were also consulted. The constant comparative method was used to analyze the data. Three categories regarding the life experiences of homeless children and youth emerged from the study; family, the road to homelessness and homelessness. Two categories were identified pertaining to educational experiences; determination or self-motivation and sources of support. The participants' testimonies confirmed some of the existing literature regarding homeless children and youth and, in particular, supported research conducted on the attributes of resiliency. In addition, participant narratives provided insight into the struggles of a marginalized segment of the school population by allowing us to hear their stories in their own words. The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty (NLCHP, 2007) recently reported that there were 1.3 million homeless children living in the United States. The voices of homeless children and youth are often silent, as the literature generally reflects their experiences only indirectly, as related by care givers or social service providers. In contrast, this study provides firsthand accounts of the difficulties encountered by children and youth who struggle to complete their educations while being homeless. This qualitative case study examines the personal and educational experiences of seven adults who had been homeless as children or youth and who graduated from high school or earned their General Education Development (GED) equivalents. Two research questions framing this study were: 1. What do the voices of adults who received a high school diploma or GED tell us about their life experiences as a homeless student? 2. What do the voices of adults who received a high school diploma or GED tell us about their educational experiences as a homeless student? Purposeful sampling was used to locate participants. The population of this study was culturally diverse and included African American and European American individuals currently between the ages of 18 and 51 years old. Data was generated via interviews using a protocol designed by the author. This instrument included both fixed and open-ended questions designed to allow participant the opportunity to share their educational and personal experiences. Various forms of documents were also consulted. The constant comparative method was used to analyze the data. Three categories regarding the life experiences of homeless children and youth emerged from the study; family, the road to homelessness and homelessness. Two categories were identified pertaining to educational experiences; determination or self motivation and sources of support. The participants' testimonies confirmed some of the existing literature regarding homeless children and youth, and in particular supported research conducted on the attributes of resiliency. In addition participant narratives provided insight into the struggles of a marginalized segment of the school population by allowing us to hear their stories in their own words.

There have been decades of attempts to evolve or revolutionise the traditional financial system, but not all such efforts have been transformative or even successful. From Chaum's proposals in the 1980s for private payment systems to micropayments, previous attempts failed to take off for a variety of reasons, including non-existing markets, or issues pertaining to usability, scalability and performance, resilience against failure, and complexity of protocols. Towards creating more resilient payment systems, we investigated issues related to security engineering in general, and payment systems in particular. We identified that network coverage, central points of failure, and attacks may cripple system performance. The premise of our research is that offline capabilities are required to produce resilience in critical systems. We focus on issues related to network problems and attacks, system resilience, and scalability by introducing the ability to process payments offline without relying on the availability of network coverage; a lack of network coverage renders some payment services unusable for their customers. Decentralising payment verification, and outsourcing some operations to users, alleviates the burden of contacting centralised systems to process every transaction. Our secondary goal is to minimise the cost of providing payment systems, so providers can cut transaction fees. Moreover, by decentralising payment verification that can be performed offline, we increase system resilience, and seamlessly maintain offline operations until a system is back online. We also use tamper-resistant hardware to tackle usability issues, by minimising cognitive overhead and helping users to correctly handle critical data, minimising the risks of data theft and tampering. We apply our research towards extending financial inclusion efforts, since the issues discussed above must be solved to extend mobile payments to the poorest demographics. More research is needed to integrate online payments, offline payments, and delay-tolerant networking. This research extends and enhances not only payment systems, but other electronically-enabled services from pay-as-you-go solar panels to agricultural subsidies and payments from aid donors. We hope that this thesis is helpful for researchers, protocol designers, and policy makers interested in creating resilient payment systems by assisting them in financial inclusion efforts.

Side channel attacks, where an attacker learns some physical information about the state of a device, are one of the ways in which cryptographic schemes are broken in practice. "Provably secure" schemes are subject to these attacks since the traditional models of security do not account for them. The theoretical community has recently proposed leakage resilient cryptography in an effort to account for side channel attacks in the security model. This thesis provides an in-depth look into what security guarantees public key leakage resilient schemes provide in practice.

Side channel attacks, where an attacker learns some physical information about the state of a device, are one of the ways in which cryptographic schemes are broken in practice. "Provably secure" schemes are subject to these attacks since the traditional models of security do not account for them. The theoretical community has recently proposed leakage resilient cryptography in an effort to account for side channel attacks in the security model. This thesis provides an in-depth look into what security guarantees public key leakage resilient schemes provide in practice.

According to the recently released National Climate Assessment (NCA), climate change will disproportionally impact the health of the most vulnerable communities in Central Texas (Melillo, 2014). Exactly how climate change will impact these populations is unclear (Measham, 2011; Martens, 2014). Nationwide, there are few examples of cities looking at the impacts of climate change on existing public health issues and vulnerable communities. The NCA, Austin/Travis County Community Health Assessment (CHA) and Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP), broadly identifies vulnerable communities as children, the elderly, the sick, the poor, and some communities of color (Melillo, 2014: Luber, 2009). The 2014 release of the NCA, in addition to the 2013 completion of the CHA and CHIP, provides an opportunity to compare current public health issues with projected changes in climate. The deductive process starts with a review of the CHA and CHIP to identify issues that are directly impacted by hotter and longer heat waves including a lack of physical activity, a decrease in mobility, and greater social isolation. These issues are then compared to likely climate scenarios for Austin in the coming century. For Austin, climate scientists project longer and hotter heat waves and higher overnight average temperatures. The results of the process are a hypothetical framework and specific actions to incorporate increasing temperatures into short-term and long-term health improvement planning. Comparing the NCA and CHA/CHIP reveals that an increase in intensity and duration of heat waves will make it especially dangerous for vulnerable communities who already struggle with health issues sensitive to heat such as obesity, respiratory ailments, and social isolation (Martens, 2014). Further analysis finds that the health implications of climate change come down to three broad topics: outdoor physical activities, lack of access to healthcare facilities, and isolation. Austin’s increasing temperatures and growing population means that more resources and efforts are needed to ensure the safety of all Austin residents. In this thesis, I put forth a hypothetical decision-making framework that prioritizes the allocation of resources to advance Austin’s pathway to climate resiliency. In addition, tools and actions are proposed to increase the climate resilience of the most vulnerable community members in Austin. / text

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Samhället och världen vi lever i är föränderlig, kanske mer än någonsin. Det finns en strävan efter tålighet och snabb återhämtning för att på ett så bra sätt som möjligt hantera händelser och förändringar som vi inte kunnat förutse. Robusta samhällen kan anses framstå som önskvärda i en föränderlig värld. Då samhällen består av människor kan det antas att robusta människor skapar goda förutsättningar för robusta samhällen. Syftet med denna studie är att få mer kännedom om hur en robust människa upplevs och om det finns likheter i beskrivningarna av ett robust samhälle och en robust människa. Studien genomfördes i form av tre semistrukturerade intervjuer med tolkande fenomenologisk analys. Tre stycken professionella, som i sin profession mött totalt ca 3000 människor som varit med om större händelser och/eller kriser, intervjuades. Studiens resultat visar att upplevelsen av en robust människa är kärleksfull, ansvarsfull i nuet och känslomedveten: Kärleksfull till sig själv, andra och livet. Ansvarsfull och i nuet, oavsett konsekvenserna Medveten om, och känner, sina känslor och gränser. Studien berör även likheter och skillnader mellan begreppen robust, resiliens, resilient och Känsla Av SAMmanhang (KASAM). Vidare visas att det finns likheter mellan hur robusta samhällen och hur robusta människor beskrivs. Robust samhälle          Robust människa Ekologisk robusthet        Strävar efter god hälsa. Social robusthet             Kan skilja på vad som är sina och andras känslor. Teknisk robusthet           Är kvar i sig själv vid yttre störningar. Studien kommer fram till att robusta människor troligen är en förutsättning för robusta samhällen. / The society and the world we live are in constant change, maybe more now than ever. There is an aim to be robust and to recover fast to be able meet unpredictable events and changes. Robust societies seem desirable in a changing world. Societies consist of individuals and robust individuals can be assumed to create good conditions for a robust society. The purpose of this study is to gain more knowledge regarding how a robust individual is perceived and if there are similarities in the way a robust society and a robust individual are described. The study was conducted using three semi-structured interviews and interpretive phenomenological analysis. Three professionals, who had meet in total about 3000 individuals who had experienced large events and/or crisis, were interviewed. The result of the study demonstrates the experience of a robust individual being loving, responsible in the present and aware of feelings. Loving to himself/herself, others and life. Responsible and in the present, disregarding the consequences Aware of, and feels, his/hers feelings and boundaries. Similarities and differences between robust, resilience, resilient and Sense Of Coherence (SOC) are briefly covered in the study. There are similarities between how a robust society and a robust individual are described. Robust society           Robust individual Ecological robustness    Aims at good health. Social robustness          Able to distinguish between his/her own feelings and others feelings. Technical robustness     Stays as himself/herself when disturbed. The result of the study shows that robust individuals are probably a prerequisite for a robust society.