Integrating hardware and software information flow analyses

Security-critical communications devices must be evaluated to the highest possible standards before they can be deployed. This process includes tracing potential information flow through the device's electronic circuitry, for each of the device's operating modes. Increasingly, however, security functionality is being entrusted to embedded software running on microprocessors within such devices, so new strategies are needed for integrating information flow analyses of embedded program code with hardware analyses. Here we show how standard compiler principles can augment high-integrity security evaluations to allow seamless tracing of information flow through both the hardware and software of embedded systems. This is done by unifying input/output statements in embedded program execution paths with the hardware pins they access, and by associating significant software states with corresponding operating modes of the surrounding electronic circuitry.

BabelFuse data fusion unit with precision wireless clock synchronisation

A significant issue encountered when fusing data received from multiple sensors is the accuracy of the timestamp associated with each piece of data. This is particularly important in applications such as Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM) where vehicle velocity forms an important part of the mapping algorithms; on fastmoving vehicles, even millisecond inconsistencies in data timestamping can produce errors which need to be compensated for. The timestamping problem is compounded in a robot swarm environment due to the use of non-deterministic readily-available hardware (such as 802.11-based wireless) and inaccurate clock synchronisation protocols (such as Network Time Protocol (NTP)). As a result, the synchronisation of the clocks between robots can be out by tens-to-hundreds of milliseconds making correlation of data difficult and preventing the possibility of the units performing synchronised actions such as triggering cameras or intricate swarm manoeuvres. In this thesis, a complete data fusion unit is designed, implemented and tested. The unit, named BabelFuse, is able to accept sensor data from a number of low-speed communication buses (such as RS232, RS485 and CAN Bus) and also timestamp events that occur on General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) pins referencing a submillisecondaccurate wirelessly-distributed "global" clock signal. In addition to its timestamping capabilities, it can also be used to trigger an attached camera at a predefined start time and frame rate. This functionality enables the creation of a wirelessly-synchronised distributed image acquisition system over a large geographic area; a real world application for this functionality is the creation of a platform to facilitate wirelessly-distributed 3D stereoscopic vision. A ‘best-practice’ design methodology is adopted within the project to ensure the final system operates according to its requirements. Initially, requirements are generated from which a high-level architecture is distilled. This architecture is then converted into a hardware specification and low-level design, which is then manufactured. The manufactured hardware is then verified to ensure it operates as designed and firmware and Linux Operating System (OS) drivers are written to provide the features and connectivity required of the system. Finally, integration testing is performed to ensure the unit functions as per its requirements. The BabelFuse System comprises of a single Grand Master unit which is responsible for maintaining the absolute value of the "global" clock. Slave nodes then determine their local clock o.set from that of the Grand Master via synchronisation events which occur multiple times per-second. The mechanism used for synchronising the clocks between the boards wirelessly makes use of specific hardware and a firmware protocol based on elements of the IEEE-1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP). With the key requirement of the system being submillisecond-accurate clock synchronisation (as a basis for timestamping and camera triggering), automated testing is carried out to monitor the o.sets between each Slave and the Grand Master over time. A common strobe pulse is also sent to each unit for timestamping; the correlation between the timestamps of the di.erent units is used to validate the clock o.set results. Analysis of the automated test results show that the BabelFuse units are almost threemagnitudes more accurate than their requirement; clocks of the Slave and Grand Master units do not di.er by more than three microseconds over a running time of six hours and the mean clock o.set of Slaves to the Grand Master is less-than one microsecond. The common strobe pulse used to verify the clock o.set data yields a positive result with a maximum variation between units of less-than two microseconds and a mean value of less-than one microsecond. The camera triggering functionality is verified by connecting the trigger pulse output of each board to a four-channel digital oscilloscope and setting each unit to output a 100Hz periodic pulse with a common start time. The resulting waveform shows a maximum variation between the rising-edges of the pulses of approximately 39¥ìs, well below its target of 1ms.

Emergence in interactive art

This thesis is concerned with creating and evaluating interactive art systems that facilitate emergent participant experiences. For the purposes of this research, interactive art is the computer based arts involving physical participation from the audience, while emergence is when a new form or concept appears that was not directly implied by the context from which it arose. This emergent ‘whole’ is more than a simple sum of its parts. The research aims to develop understanding of the nature of emergent experiences that might arise during participant interaction with interactive art systems. It also aims to understand the design issues surrounding the creation of these systems. The approach used is Practice-based, integrating practice, evaluation and theoretical research. Practice used methods from Reflection-in-action and Iterative design to create two interactive art systems: Glass Pond and +-now. Creation of +-now resulted in a novel method for instantiating emergent shapes. Both art works were also evaluated in exploratory studies. In addition, a main study with 30 participants was conducted on participant interaction with +-now. These sessions were video recorded and participants were interviewed about their experience. Recordings were transcribed and analysed using Grounded theory methods. Emergent participant experiences were identified and classified using a taxonomy of emergence in interactive art. This taxonomy draws on theoretical research. The outcomes of this Practice-based research are summarised as follows. Two interactive art systems, where the second work clearly facilitates emergent interaction, were created. Their creation involved the development of a novel method for instantiating emergent shapes and it informed aesthetic and design issues surrounding interactive art systems for emergence. A taxonomy of emergence in interactive art was also created. Other outcomes are the evaluation findings about participant experiences, including different types of emergence experienced and the coding schemes produced during data analysis.

Managing memory and reducing I/O cost for correlation matrix calculation in bioinformatics

The generation of a correlation matrix from a large set of long gene sequences is a common requirement in many bioinformatics problems such as phylogenetic analysis. The generation is not only computationally intensive but also requires significant memory resources as, typically, few gene sequences can be simultaneously stored in primary memory. The standard practice in such computation is to use frequent input/output (I/O) operations. Therefore, minimizing the number of these operations will yield much faster run-times. This paper develops an approach for the faster and scalable computing of large-size correlation matrices through the full use of available memory and a reduced number of I/O operations. The approach is scalable in the sense that the same algorithms can be executed on different computing platforms with different amounts of memory and can be applied to different problems with different correlation matrix sizes. The significant performance improvement of the approach over the existing approaches is demonstrated through benchmark examples.

A frontier functions approach to optimal scales of sustainable production

This paper translates the concepts of sustainable production to three dimensions of economic, environmental and ecological sustainability to analyze optimal production scales by solving optimizing problems. Economic optimization seeks input-output combinations to maximize profits. Environmental optimization searches for input-output combinations that minimize the polluting effects of materials balance on the surrounding environment. Ecological optimization looks for input-output combinations that minimize the cumulative destruction of the entire ecosystem. Using an aggregate space, the framework illustrates that these optimal scales are often not identical because markets fail to account for all negative externalities. Profit-maximizing firms normally operate at the scales which are larger than optimal scales from the viewpoints of environmental and ecological sustainability; hence policy interventions are favoured. The framework offers a useful tool for efficiency studies and policy implication analysis. The paper provides an empirical investigation using a data set of rice farms in South Korea.

Component modeling for SCADA network mapping

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems (SCADA) are widely used to control critical infrastructure automatically. Capturing and analyzing packet-level traffic flowing through such a network is an essential requirement for problems such as legacy network mapping and fault detection. Within the framework of captured network traffic, we present a simple modeling technique, which supports the mapping of the SCADA network topology via traffic monitoring. By characterizing atomic network components in terms of their input-output topology and the relationship between their data traffic logs, we show that these modeling primitives have good compositional behaviour, which allows complex networks to be modeled. Finally, the predictions generated by our model are found to be in good agreement with experimentally obtained traffic.

Random vibration of a second order non-linear elastic system

A method is presented for obtaining, approximately, the response covariance and probability distribution of a non-linear oscillator under a Gaussian excitation. The method has similarities with the hierarchy closure and the equivalent linearization approaches, but is different. A Gaussianization technique is used to arrive at the output autocorrelation and the input-output cross-correlation. This along with an energy equivalence criterion is used to estimate the response distribution function. The method is applicable in both the transient and steady state response analysis under either stationary or non-stationary excitations. Good comparison has been observed between the predicted and the exact steady state probability distribution of a Duffing oscillator under a white noise input.

Nonradial directional performance measurement with undesirable outputs: An application to OECD and Non-OECD countries

The objective of this paper is to provide a more comprehensive e±ciency measure to estimate the performance of OECD and non-OECD countries. A Russell directional distance function that appropriately credits the decision-making unit not only for increase in desirable outputs but also for the decrease of undesirable outputs is derived from the proposed weighted Russell directional distance model. The method was applied to a panel of 116 countries from 1992 to 2010. This framework also decomposes the comprehensive efficiency measure into individual input/ output components' inefficiency scores that are useful for policy making. The results reveal that the OECD countries perform better than the non-OECD countries in overall, goods,labor and capital efficiencies, but worse in bad and energy efficiencies.

Corporate Environmental Responsibility in Demand Networks (summary section only)

Research on corporate responsibility has traditionally focused on the responsibilities of companies within their corporate boundaries only. Yet this view is challenged today as more and more companies face the situation in which the environmental and social performance of their suppliers, distributors, industry or other associated partners impacts on their sales performance and brand equity. Simultaneously, policy-makers have taken up the discussion on corporate responsibility from the perspective of globalisation, in particular of global supply chains. The category of selecting and evaluating suppliers has also entered the field of environmental reporting. Companies thus need to tackle their responsibility in collaboration with different partners. The aim of the thesis is to further the understanding of collaboration and corporate environmental responsibility beyond corporate boundaries. Drawing on the fields of supply chain management and industrial ecology, the thesis sets out to investigate inter-firm collaboration on three different levels, between the company and its stakeholders, in the supply chain, and in the demand network of a company. The thesis is comprised of four papers: Paper A discusses the use of different research approaches in logistics and supply chain management. Paper B introduces the study on collaboration and corporate environmental responsibility from a focal company perspective, looking at the collaboration of companies with their stakeholders, and the salience of these stakeholders. Paper C widens this perspective to an analysis on the supply chain level. The focus here is not only beyond corporate boundaries, but also beyond direct supplier and customer interfaces in the supply chain. Paper D then extends the analysis to the demand network level, taking into account the input-output, competitive and regulatory environments, in which a company operates. The results of the study broaden the view of corporate responsibility. By applying this broader view, different types of inter-firm collaboration can be highlighted. Results also show how environmental demand is extended in the supply chain regardless of the industry background of the company.

NON-DIMENSIONAL KINETOELASTOSTATIC MAPS FOR COMPLIANT MECHANISMS

How do we assess the capability of a compliant mechanism of given topology and shape? The kinetoelastostatic maps proposed in this paper help answer this question. These maps are drawn in 2D using two non-dimensional quantities, one capturing the nonlinear static response and the other the geometry, material, and applied forces. Geometrically nonlinear finite element analysis is used to create the maps for compliant mechanisms consisting of slender beams. In addition to the topology and shape, the overall proportions and the proportions of the cross-sections of the beam segments are kept fixed for a map. The finite region of the map is parameterized using a non-dimensional quantity defined as the slenderness ratio. The shape and size of the map and the parameterized curves inside it indicate the complete kinetoelastostatic capability of the corresponding compliant mechanism of given topology, shape, and fixed proportions. Static responses considered in this paper include input/output displacement, geometric amplification, mechanical advantage, maximum stress, etc. The maps can be used to compare mechanisms, to choose a suitable mechanism for an application, or re-design as may be needed. The usefulness of the non-dimensional maps is presented with multiple applications of different variety. Non-dimensional portrayal of snap-through mechanisms is one such example. The effect of the shape of the cross-section of the beam segments and the role of different segments in the mechanism as well as extension to 3D compliant mechanisms, the cases of multiple inputs and outputs, and moment loads are also explained. The effects of disproportionate changes on the maps are also analyzed.

Stability of Switched Feedback Time-Varying Dynamic Systems Based on the Properties of the Gap Metric for Operators

The stabilization of dynamic switched control systems is focused on and based on an operator-based formulation. It is assumed that the controlled object and the controller are described by sequences of closed operator pairs (L, C) on a Hilbert space H of the input and output spaces and it is related to the existence of the inverse of the resulting input-output operator being admissible and bounded. The technical mechanism addressed to get the results is the appropriate use of the fact that closed operators being sufficiently close to bounded operators, in terms of the gap metric, are also bounded. That philosophy is followed for the operators describing the input-output relations in switched feedback control systems so as to guarantee the closed-loop stabilization.

On Bounded Strictly Positive Operators of Closed Range and Some Applications to Asymptotic Hyperstability of Dynamic Systems

The problem discussed is the stability of two input-output feedforward and feedback relations, under an integral-type constraint defining an admissible class of feedback controllers. Sufficiency-type conditions are given for the positive, bounded and of closed range feed-forward operator to be strictly positive and then boundedly invertible, with its existing inverse being also a strictly positive operator. The general formalism is first established and the linked to properties of some typical contractive and pseudocontractive mappings while some real-world applications and links of the above formalism to asymptotic hyperstability of dynamic systems are discussed later on.

Aperiodic structures in optics and integrated optics and the transverse Bragg reflector laser

The first part of this work describes the uses of aperiodic structures in optics and integrated optics. In particular, devices are designed, fabricated, tested and analyzed which make use of a chirped grating corrugation on the surface of a dielectric waveguide. These structures can be used as input-output couplers, multiplexers and demultiplexers, and broad band filters.

Next, a theoretical analysis is made of the effects of a random statistical variation in the thicknesses of layers in a dielectric mirror on its reflectivity properties. Unlike the intentional aperiodicity introduced in the chirped gratings, the aperiodicity in the Bragg reflector mirrors is unintentional and is present to some extent in all devices made. The analysis involved in studying these problems relies heavily on the coupled mode formalism. The results are compared with computer experiments, as well as tests of actual mirrors.

The second part of this work describes a novel method for confining light in the transverse direction in an injection laser. These so-called transverse Bragg reflector lasers confine light normal to the junction plane in the active region, through reflection from an adjacent layered medium. Thus, in principle, it is possible to guide light in a dielectric layer whose index is lower than that of the surrounding material. The design, theory and testing of these diode lasers are discussed.

Quantum Electromechanics with Two Tone Drive

In the field of mechanics, it is a long standing goal to measure quantum behavior in ever larger and more massive objects. It may now seem like an obvious conclusion, but until recently it was not clear whether a macroscopic mechanical resonator -- built up from nearly 10¹³ atoms -- could be fully described as an ideal quantum harmonic oscillator. With recent advances in the fields of opto- and electro-mechanics, such systems offer a unique advantage in probing the quantum noise properties of macroscopic electrical and mechanical devices, properties that ultimately stem from Heisenberg's uncertainty relations. Given the rapid progress in device capabilities, landmark results of quantum optics are now being extended into the regime of macroscopic mechanics.

The purpose of this dissertation is to describe three experiments -- motional sideband asymmetry, back-action evasion (BAE) detection, and mechanical squeezing -- that are directly related to the topic of measuring quantum noise with mechanical detection. These measurements all share three pertinent features: they explore quantum noise properties in a macroscopic electromechanical device driven by a minimum of two microwave drive tones, hence the title of this work: "Quantum electromechanics with two tone drive".

In the following, we will first introduce a quantum input-output framework that we use to model the electromechanical interaction and capture subtleties related to interpreting different microwave noise detection techniques. Next, we will discuss the fabrication and measurement details that we use to cool and probe these devices with coherent and incoherent microwave drive signals. Having developed our tools for signal modeling and detection, we explore the three-wave mixing interaction between the microwave and mechanical modes, whereby mechanical motion generates motional sidebands corresponding to up-down frequency conversions of microwave photons. Because of quantum vacuum noise, the rates of these processes are expected to be unequal. We will discuss the measurement and interpretation of this asymmetric motional noise in a electromechanical device cooled near the ground state of motion.

Next, we consider an overlapped two tone pump configuration that produces a time-modulated electromechanical interaction. By careful control of this drive field, we report a quantum non-demolition (QND) measurement of a single motional quadrature. Incorporating a second pair of drive tones, we directly measure the measurement back-action associated with both classical and quantum noise of the microwave cavity. Lastly, we slightly modify our drive scheme to generate quantum squeezing in a macroscopic mechanical resonator. Here, we will focus on data analysis techniques that we use to estimate the quadrature occupations. We incorporate Bayesian spectrum fitting and parameter estimation that serve as powerful tools for incorporating many known sources of measurement and fit error that are unavoidable in such work.

O PROEJA na Rede de Ensino FAETEC: um estudo sobre a implementação e organização curricular na ETE Ferreira Viana - caminhos e descaminhos

Esta pesquisa tem por objetivo analisar a organização curricular do PROEJA na Escola Técnica Estadual Ferreira Viana, uma das unidades da rede de ensino FAETEC, suas implicações no processo da formação humana e nos processos de subjetivação balizados em Foucault. Desta forma, buscouse descrever o desenvolvimento das políticas públicas implementadas pelo governo federal no período de 2009 a 2014, para a Educação Profissional de Jovens e Adultos, bem como discutir os efeitos desta implementação nesta rede de ensino. Adotouse a utilização de procedimentos metodológicos inicialmente através de uma análise documental e levantamento de dados estatísticos sobre entrada, retenção e saída de alunos. Após esta identificação foi realizado um registro de campo e entrevistas semi-estruturadas com os agentes envolvidos neste processo, no sentido de maior aproximação com o cotidiano de ensino desta unidade escolar. Por último e como foco principal, foi desenvolvido uma análise sobre a organização curricular do PROEJA na Escola Técnica Estadual Ferreira Viana da Rede de Ensino FAETEC, com o intuito de melhor compreender como se estabelecem as relações neste processo de sistematização curricular, tendo em vista a análise de sua estrutura, as ações estabelecidas pelos docentes na aplicação do ensino, a realidade vivida no processo de aprendizagem dos alunos, e os desafios da integração curricular e suas possíveis reformulações, frente às exigências da educação profissional no contexto atual da educação brasileira