Specification and Runtime Verification of Java Card Programs

COSTA, Umberto Souza da; MOREIRA, Anamaria Martins; MUSICANTE, Martin A. Specification and Runtime Verification of Java Card Programs. Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science. [S.l:s.n], 2009.

Neuronal Assembly Detection and Cell Membership Specification by Principal Component Analysis

LOPES-DOS-SANTOS, V. , CONDE-OCAZIONEZ, S. ; NICOLELIS, M. A. L. , RIBEIRO, S. T. , TORT, A. B. L. . Neuronal assembly detection and cell membership specification by principal component analysis. Plos One, v. 6, p. e20996, 2011.

Reuse and integration of specification logics: the hybridisation perspective

Hybridisation is a systematic process along which the characteristic features of hybrid logic, both at the syntactic and the semantic levels, are developed on top of an arbitrary logic framed as an institution. It also captures the construction of first-order encodings of such hybridised institutions into theories in first-order logic. The method was originally developed to build suitable logics for the specification of reconfigurable software systems on top of whatever logic is used to describe local requirements of each system’s configuration. Hybridisation has, however, a broader scope, providing a fresh example of yet another development in combining and reusing logics driven by a problem from Computer Science. This paper offers an overview of this method, proposes some new extensions, namely the introduction of full quantification leading to the specification of dynamic modalities, and exemplifies its potential through a didactical application. It is discussed how hybridisation can be successfully used in a formal specification course in which students progress from equational to hybrid specifications in a uniform setting, integrating paradigms, combining data and behaviour, and dealing appropriately with systems evolution and reconfiguration.

A functional specification and validation model for networks on chip in the ACL2 logic

International audience

Specification of a smart meter/actuator description mechanism & development of a mobile application

Home Automation holds the potential of realizing cost savings for end users while reducing the carbon footprint of domestic energy consumption. Yet, adoption is still very low. High cost of vendor-supplied home automation systems is a major prohibiting factor. Open source systems such as FHEM, Domoticz, OpenHAB etc. are a cheaper alternative and can drive the adoption of home automation. Moreover, they have the advantage of not being limited to a single vendor or communication technology which gives end users flexibility in the choice of devices to include in their installation. However, interaction with devices having diverse communication technologies can be inconvenient for users thus limiting the utility they derive from it. For application developers, creating applications which interact with the several technologies in the home automation systems is not a consistent process. Hence, there is the need for a common description mechanism that makes interaction smooth for end users and which enables application developers to make home automation applications in a consistent and uniform way. This thesis proposes such a description mechanism within the context of an open source home automation system – FHEM, together with a system concept for its application. A mobile application was developed as a proof of concept of the proposed description mechanism and the results of the implementation are reflected upon.

A Coopetition Space for Complex Product Specification

Part 3: Product-Service Systems

Testing the link specification in binary choice models. A semiparametric approach.

Doutoramento em Matemática.

Technical report specification, mark scheme

Specification for technical report, mark scheme. A template for a technical report is found at http://www.edshare.soton.ac.uk/14581

A large-scale computing infrastructure for design education

Most departmental computing infrastructure reflects the state of networking technology and available funds at the time of construction, which converge in a preconceived notion of homogeneity of network architecture and usage patterns. The DMAN (Digital Media Access Network) project, a large-scale server and network foundation for the Hong Kong Polytechnic University's School of Design was created as a platform that would support a highly complex academic environment while giving maximum freedom to students, faculty and researchers through simplicity and ease of use. As a centralized multi-user computation backbone, DMAN faces an extremely hetrogeneous user and application profile, exceeding implementation and maintenance challenges of typical enterprise, and even most academic server set-ups. This paper sumarizes the specification, implementation and application of the system while describing its significance for design education in a computational context.

Abstracting and correlating heterogeneous events to detect complex scenarios

The research presented in this thesis addresses inherent problems in signaturebased intrusion detection systems (IDSs) operating in heterogeneous environments. The research proposes a solution to address the difficulties associated with multistep attack scenario specification and detection for such environments. The research has focused on two distinct problems: the representation of events derived from heterogeneous sources and multi-step attack specification and detection. The first part of the research investigates the application of an event abstraction model to event logs collected from a heterogeneous environment. The event abstraction model comprises a hierarchy of events derived from different log sources such as system audit data, application logs, captured network traffic, and intrusion detection system alerts. Unlike existing event abstraction models where low-level information may be discarded during the abstraction process, the event abstraction model presented in this work preserves all low-level information as well as providing high-level information in the form of abstract events. The event abstraction model presented in this work was designed independently of any particular IDS and thus may be used by any IDS, intrusion forensic tools, or monitoring tools. The second part of the research investigates the use of unification for multi-step attack scenario specification and detection. Multi-step attack scenarios are hard to specify and detect as they often involve the correlation of events from multiple sources which may be affected by time uncertainty. The unification algorithm provides a simple and straightforward scenario matching mechanism by using variable instantiation where variables represent events as defined in the event abstraction model. The third part of the research looks into the solution to address time uncertainty. Clock synchronisation is crucial for detecting multi-step attack scenarios which involve logs from multiple hosts. Issues involving time uncertainty have been largely neglected by intrusion detection research. The system presented in this research introduces two techniques for addressing time uncertainty issues: clock skew compensation and clock drift modelling using linear regression. An off-line IDS prototype for detecting multi-step attacks has been implemented. The prototype comprises two modules: implementation of the abstract event system architecture (AESA) and of the scenario detection module. The scenario detection module implements our signature language developed based on the Python programming language syntax and the unification-based scenario detection engine. The prototype has been evaluated using a publicly available dataset of real attack traffic and event logs and a synthetic dataset. The distinct features of the public dataset are the fact that it contains multi-step attacks which involve multiple hosts with clock skew and clock drift. These features allow us to demonstrate the application and the advantages of the contributions of this research. All instances of multi-step attacks in the dataset have been correctly identified even though there exists a significant clock skew and drift in the dataset. Future work identified by this research would be to develop a refined unification algorithm suitable for processing streams of events to enable an on-line detection. In terms of time uncertainty, identified future work would be to develop mechanisms which allows automatic clock skew and clock drift identification and correction. The immediate application of the research presented in this thesis is the framework of an off-line IDS which processes events from heterogeneous sources using abstraction and which can detect multi-step attack scenarios which may involve time uncertainty.

Building Information Modelling for FM at Sydney Opera House

“SOH see significant benefit in digitising its drawings and operation and maintenance manuals. Since SOH do not currently have digital models of the Opera House structure or other components, there is an opportunity for this national case study to promote the application of Digital Facility Modelling using standardized Building Information Models (BIM)”. The digital modelling element of this project examined the potential of building information models for Facility Management focusing on the following areas: • The re-usability of building information for FM purposes • BIM as an Integrated information model for facility management • Extendibility of the BIM to cope with business specific requirements • Commercial facility management software using standardised building information models • The ability to add (organisation specific) intelligence to the model • A roadmap for SOH to adopt BIM for FM The project has established that BIM – building information modelling - is an appropriate and potentially beneficial technology for the storage of integrated building, maintenance and management data for SOH. Based on the attributes of a BIM, several advantages can be envisioned: consistency in the data, intelligence in the model, multiple representations, source of information for intelligent programs and intelligent queries. The IFC – open building exchange standard – specification provides comprehensive support for asset and facility management functions, and offers new management, collaboration and procurement relationships based on sharing of intelligent building data. The major advantages of using an open standard are: information can be read and manipulated by any compliant software, reduced user “lock in” to proprietary solutions, third party software can be the “best of breed” to suit the process and scope at hand, standardised BIM solutions consider the wider implications of information exchange outside the scope of any particular vendor, information can be archived as ASCII files for archival purposes, and data quality can be enhanced as the now single source of users’ information has improved accuracy, correctness, currency, completeness and relevance. SOH current building standards have been successfully drafted for a BIM environment and are confidently expected to be fully developed when BIM is adopted operationally by SOH. There have been remarkably few technical difficulties in converting the House’s existing conventions and standards to the new model based environment. This demonstrates that the IFC model represents world practice for building data representation and management (see Sydney Opera House – FM Exemplar Project Report Number 2005-001-C-3, Open Specification for BIM: Sydney Opera House Case Study). Availability of FM applications based on BIM is in its infancy but focussed systems are already in operation internationally and show excellent prospects for implementation systems at SOH. In addition to the generic benefits of standardised BIM described above, the following FM specific advantages can be expected from this new integrated facilities management environment: faster and more effective processes, controlled whole life costs and environmental data, better customer service, common operational picture for current and strategic planning, visual decision-making and a total ownership cost model. Tests with partial BIM data – provided by several of SOH’s current consultants – show that the creation of a SOH complete model is realistic, but subject to resolution of compliance and detailed functional support by participating software applications. The showcase has demonstrated successfully that IFC based exchange is possible with several common BIM based applications through the creation of a new partial model of the building. Data exchanged has been geometrically accurate (the SOH building structure represents some of the most complex building elements) and supports rich information describing the types of objects, with their properties and relationships.

Trip to Sunshine Coast Queensland, September 2004 visit to bridge and foreshore

A trip was undertaken to look at concerns of Public Works and Main Roads Departments of Queensland. David Paterson and Wayne Ganther from CSIRO travelled to the Sunshine Coast with Alan Carse of Queensland Department of Main Roads and Michael Ball of Queensland Department of Public Works. We were also joined for part of the visits by Ed Bowers of QBuild which is a commercial unit of Public Works responsible for maintenance of Public Works. During the trip we visited a bridge on the David Low Way at Sunrise Beach near Noosa. This bridge was in a serve marine environment with high salt content in the concrete and corrosion of the galvanised guardrails and barriers. Also the foreshore at Coolum was visited and the use of stainless steel was examined. This is discussed in this report. Most problems stemmed from incorrect specification due to lack of awareness of the severity of the environment. The companion report Visit to Schools Report 2002-059-B No 7. covers the visit to four schools north of Caloundra.