Program-level support for protecting an application from untrustworthy components

Many software applications extend their functionality by dynamically loading executable components into their allocated address space. Such components, exemplified by browser plugins and other software add-ons, not only enable reusability, but also promote programming simplicity, as they reside in the same address space as their host application, supporting easy sharing of complex data structures and pointers. However, such components are also often of unknown provenance and quality and may be riddled with accidental bugs or, in some cases, deliberately malicious code. Statistics show that such component failures account for a high percentage of software crashes and vulnerabilities. Enabling isolation of such fine-grained components is therefore necessary to increase the stability, security and resilience of computer programs. This thesis addresses this issue by showing how host applications can create isolation domains for individual components, while preserving the benefits of a single address space, via a new architecture for software isolation called LibVM. Towards this end, we define a specification which outlines the functional requirements for LibVM, identify the conditions under which these functional requirements can be met, define an abstract Application Programming Interface (API) that encompasses the general problem of isolating shared libraries, thus separating policy from mechanism, and prove its practicality with two concrete implementations based on hardware virtualization and system call interpositioning, respectively. The results demonstrate that hardware isolation minimises the difficulties encountered with software based approaches, while also reducing the size of the trusted computing base, thus increasing confidence in the solution’s correctness. This thesis concludes that, not only is it feasible to create such isolation domains for individual components, but that it should also be a fundamental operating system supported abstraction, which would lead to more stable and secure applications.

Children's literature and the environment

Fiction offers creative and imaginative scenarios and solutions that may stimulate young people to consider their own relationship with the environment. Literature for young people also offers insights into ecocatastrophe, anthropocentrism, sustainability, and other important issues. A further significance of this project is that it aligns with the cross-curriculum priority of the Australian Curriculum, namely ‘sustainability’. The 'Children's Literature and the Environment' project in AustLit includes a variety of bibliographic records (fiction, information books, film, poetry, and multimedia) relevant to children and young adults that deal with the environment in imaginative, scientific, educational, and creative ways, which culminates in an online exhibition. There are a number of components clustered around key concepts and issues, such as sustainability, urban environments, and Indigenous perspectives. This exhibition allows researchers and students to access and engage with bibliographical data on a range of literary and critical texts that provide various environmental perspectives over a significant period of time.

Hampson type heat-exchanger technology and economic evaluation for LNG re- gasification and power generation At LNG receiving terminals

The system for high utilization of LNG cold energy is proposed by use of process simulator. The proposed design is a closed loop system, and composed by a Hampson type heat exchanger, turbines, pumps and advanced humid air turbine (AHAT) or Gas turbine combined cycle (GTCC). Its heat sources are Boil-off gas and cooling water for AHAT or GTCC. The higher cold exergy recovery to power can be about 38 to 56% as compared to the existing cold power generation of about 20% with a Rankine cycle of a single component. The advantage of the proposed system is to reduce the number of heat exchangers. Furthermore, the environmental impact is minimized because the proposed design is a closed loop system. A life cycle comparative cost is calculated to demonstrate feasibility of the proposed design. The development of the Hampson type exchangers is expected to meet the key functional requirements and will result in much higher LNG cold exergy recovery and the overall system performance i.e. re-gasification. Additionally, the proposed design is expected to provide flexibility to meet different gas pressure suited for the deregulation of energy system in Japan and higher reliability for an integrated boil-off gas system.

Transcriptional regulation by the orphan nuclear receptor ERRgamma

The nuclear receptor (NR) superfamily is comprised of receptors for small lipopfilic ligands such as steroid hormones, thyroid hormone, retinoids, and vitamin D. NRs are ligand-inducible transcription factors capable of both activating and repressing their target gene expression. They control a wide range of biological functions connected to growth, development, and homeostasis. In addition to the ligand-regulated receptors, the family includes a large group of receptors whose physiological ligands are unknown. These receptors are referred to as orphan NRs. Estrogen-related receptor gamma (ERRgamma) belongs to the ERR subfamily of orphan NRs together with the related ERRalpha and ERRbeta. ERRs share amino acid sequence homology with the classical estrogen receptors (ERs) but they are unable to bind natural estrogenic ligands. ERRgamma is expressed in several embryonic and adult tissues but its biological role is still largely unknown. ERRgamma activates reporter gene expression in transfected cells independently of added hormones implying that ERRgamma harbors constitutive activity. However, the intrinsic activity of ERRgamma can be inhibited by synthetic compounds such as the selective estrogen receptor modulator 4-hydroxytamoxifen (4-OHT). Ligands of NRs can act as agonists that activate transcription, as antagonists that prevent activation of transcription, or as inverse agonists that antagonize the constitutive transcriptional activity of receptor. Most of the synthetic ERRgamma ligands act as inverse agonists but recently, a synthetic ERRgamma agonist GSK4716 was identified. This demonstrates that it is possible to design and identify agonists for ERRgamma. Prior to this thesis work, the structural and functional characteristics of ERRgamma were largely unknown. The aim of this study was to define the functional requirements for ERRgamma-mediated transcriptional regulation and to examine the cross-talk between ERRgamma and other NRs. Due to the fact that natural physiological ligands of ERRgamma are unknown, another aim of this study was to seek new natural compounds that may affect transcriptional activity of ERRgamma. Plant-derived phytoestrogens have previously been shown to act as ligands for ERs and ERRalpha, and therefore the effects of these compounds were also studied on ERRgamma-mediated transcriptional regulation. This work demonstrated that ERRgamma-mediated transcriptional regulation was dependent on DNA-binding, dimerization and activation function-2. Heterodimerization with ERRalpha inhibited the transcriptional activity of ERRgamma. In addition to 4-OHT, another anti-estrogen, 4-hydroxytoremifene (4-OHtor), was identified as an inverse agonist of ERRgamma. Interestingly, ERRgamma activated transcription in the presence of 4-OHT and 4-OHtor on activator protein-1 binding sites. ERRgamma was found to interact with another orphan NR Nurr1 by repressing the ability of Nurr1 to activate transcription of the osteopontin gene. Transcriptional activity of ERRgamma was shown to be stimulated by the phytoestrogen equol. Structural model analysis and mutational experiments indicated that equol was able to bind to the ligand binding domain of ERRgamma. The growth inhibitory effect of ERRgamma on prostate cancer cells was found to be enhanced by equol. In summary, this study demonstrates that despite the absence of an endogenous physiological ligand, the activity of ERRgamma can be modulated in other ways such as dimerization with related receptors or by cross-talk with other transcription factors as well as by binding some synthetic or natural compounds.

Open-source tools for enhancing full-text searching of OPACs Use of Koha, Greenstone and Fedora

Purpose - There are many library automation packages available as open-source software, comprising two modules: staff-client module and online public access catalogue (OPAC). Although the OPAC of these library automation packages provides advanced features of searching and retrieval of bibliographic records, none of them facilitate full-text searching. Most of the available open-source digital library software facilitates indexing and searching of full-text documents in different formats. This paper makes an effort to enable full-text search features in the widely used open-source library automation package Koha, by integrating it with two open-source digital library software packages, Greenstone Digital Library Software (GSDL) and Fedora Generic Search Service (FGSS), independently. Design/methodology/approach - The implementation is done by making use of the Search and Retrieval by URL (SRU) feature available in Koha, GSDL and FGSS. The full-text documents are indexed both in Koha and GSDL and FGSS. Findings - Full-text searching capability in Koha is achieved by integrating either GSDL or FGSS into Koha and by passing an SRU request to GSDL or FGSS from Koha. The full-text documents are indexed both in the library automation package (Koha) and digital library software (GSDL, FGSS) Originality/value - This is the first implementation enabling the full-text search feature in a library automation software by integrating it into digital library software.

Special Issue: Engineering applications of representations of function, Part 1

In engineering design, the end goal is the creation of an artifact, product, system, or process that fulfills some functional requirements at some desired level of performance. As such, knowledge of functionality is essential in a wide variety of tasks in engineering activities, including modeling, generation, modification, visualization, explanation, evaluation, diagnosis, and repair of these artifacts and processes. A formal representation of functionality is essential for supporting any of these activities on computers. The goal of Parts 1 and 2 of this Special Issue is to bring together the state of knowledge of representing functionality in engineering applications from both the engineering and the artificial intelligence (AI) research communities.

Evaluating FuncSION: A software for automated synthesis of design solutions for stimulating ideation during mechanical conceptual design

The goal of the work reported in this paper is to use automated, combinatorial synthesis to generate alternative solutions to be used as stimuli by designers for ideation. FuncSION, a computational synthesis tool that can automatically synthesize solution concepts for mechanical devices by combining building blocks from a library, is used for this purpose. The objectives of FuncSION are to help generate a variety of functional requirements for a given problem and a variety of concepts to fulfill these functions. A distinctive feature of FuncSION is its focus on automated generation of spatial configurations, an aspect rarely addressed by other computational synthesis programs. This paper provides an overview of FuncSION in terms of representation of design problems, representation of building blocks, and rules with which building blocks are combined to generate concepts at three levels of abstraction: topological, spatial, and physical. The paper then provides a detailed account of evaluating FuncSION for its effectiveness in providing stimuli for enhanced ideation.

Uma infraestrutura para monitoramento de sistemas cientes do contexto.

Aplicações ubíquas e pervasivas são cientes do contexto dos recursos utilizados no que diz respeito à disponibilidade e qualidade. Esta classe de aplicações pode se beneficiar de mecanismos para descobrir recursos que atendam aos requisitos não-funcionais desejados, e mecanismos para monitorar a qualidade destes recursos. Neste trabalho é proposta uma arquitetura para dois serviços que deveriam ser incluídos na infra-estrutura de suporte a ser utilizada pelas aplicações mencionadas: um Serviço de Contexto, que provê acesso a informações de contexto, e um Serviço de Descoberta, que permite a descoberta dinâmica de recursos, levando em conta restrições de contexto a serem satisfeitas. Estes serviços se apóiam em Agentes de Recursos, que efetivamente monitoram os recursos e sensores. Uma implementação de referência foi desenvolvida, oferecendo os serviços mencionados na forma de Serviços Web e implementando os Agentes de Recursos empregando um padrão de projeto simples. Para avaliar os serviços estes foram utilizados como infra-estrutura para o desenvolvimento de um sistema tolerante a falhas e uma aplicação de assistência domiciliar remota (tele-saúde). O desempenho dos serviços também foi avaliado.

Towards persistent structural health monitoring through sustainable wireless sensor networks

This paper documents the design, implementation and characterisation of a wireless sensor node (GENESI Node v1.0), applicable to long-term structural health monitoring. Presented is a three layer abstraction of the hardware platform; consisting of a Sensor Layer, a Main Layer and a Power Layer. Extended operational lifetime is one of the primary design goals, necessitating the inclusion of supplemental energy sources, energy awareness, and the implementation of optimal components (microcontroller(s), RF transceiver, etc.) to achieve lowest-possible power consumption, whilst ensuring that the functional requirements of the intended application area are satisfied. A novel Smart Power Unit has been developed; including intelligence, ambient available energy harvesting (EH), storage, electrochemical fuel cell integration, and recharging capability, which acts as the Power Layer for the node. The functional node has been prototyped, demonstrated and characterised in a variety of operational modes. It is demonstrable via simulation that, under normal operating conditions within a structural health monitoring application, the node may operate perpetually.

GENESI: Wireless sensor networks for structural monitoring

The GENESI project has the ambitious goal of bringing WSN technology to the level where it can provide the core of the next generation of systems for structural health monitoring that are long lasting, pervasive and totally distributed and autonomous. This goal requires embracing engineering and scientific challenges never successfully tackled before. Sensor nodes will be redesigned to overcome their current limitations, especially concerning energy storage and provisioning (we need devices with virtually infinite lifetime) and resilience to faults and interferences (for reliability and robustness). New software and protocols will be defined to fully take advantage of the new hardware, providing new paradigms for cross-layer interaction at all layers of the protocol stack and satisfying the requirements of a new concept of Quality of Service (QoS) that is application-driven, truly reflecting the end user perspective and expectations. The GENESI project will develop long lasting sensor nodes by combining cutting edge technologies for energy generation from the environment (energy harvesting) and green energy supply (small form factor fuel cells); GENESI will define models for energy harvesting, energy conservation in super-capacitors and supplemental energy availability through fuel cells, in addition to the design of new algorithms and protocols for dynamic allocation of sensing and communication tasks to the sensors. The project team will design communication protocols for large scale heterogeneous wireless sensor/actuator networks with energy-harvesting capabilities and define distributed mechanisms for context assessment and situation awareness. This paper presents an analysis of the GENESI system requirements in order to achieve the ambitious goals of the project. Extending from the requirements presented, the emergent system specification is discussed with respect to the selection and integration of relevant system components.The resulting integrated system will be evaluated and characterised to ensure that it is capable of satisfying the functional requirements of the project

Natural inspiration for self-adaptive systems

The emergent behaviour of autonomic systems, together with the scale of their deployment, impedes prediction of the full range of configuration and failure scenarios; thus it is not possible to devise management and recovery strategies to cover all possible outcomes. One solution to this problem is to embed self-managing and self-healing abilities into such applications. Traditional design approaches favour determinism, even when unnecessary. This can lead to conflicts between the non-functional requirements. Natural systems such as ant colonies have evolved cooperative, finely tuned emergent behaviours which allow the colonies to function at very large scale and to be very robust, although non-deterministic. Simple pheromone-exchange communication systems are highly efficient and are a major contribution to their success. This paper proposes that we look to natural systems for inspiration when designing architecture and communications strategies, and presents an election algorithm which encapsulates non-deterministic behaviour to achieve high scalability, robustness and stability.

Late industrialization and the increased merit selection hypothesis - Ireland as a test case

The Irish case provides a particularly appropriate test of the increasing merit selection hypothesis deriving from the liberal theory of industrialization. This is so not only because the lateness and speed of economic change allows us to capture such change through a set of national surveys conducted in the past three decades, but also because such change was based on a sustained policy of increased openness to international competitive forces. The functional requirements of the economy and a rapid increase in the supply of those with higher educational qualifications provided an ideal context in which to observe the movement from ascription to achievement predicted by the liberal theory. However, while changes in the class structure and a rapid expansion of educational opportunity had significant consequences in terms of absolute mobility, there was no evidence of a significant shift towards meritocratic principles. At the same time as the service class increased their advantage over other classes in the pursuit of educational qualifications, the impact of educational qualifications on class destination diminished. Controlling for education, we find that the impact of class origin effects is substantial and shows little sign of diminishing over time. In our conclusion we discuss the implications of our findings in the context of the recent debate on meritocracy.

Evolution of Antimicrobial Peptides to Self-Assembled Peptides for Biomaterial Applications

Biomaterial-related infections are a persistent burden on patient health, recovery, mortality and healthcare budgets. Self-assembled antimicrobial peptides have evolved from the area of antimicrobial peptides. Peptides serve as important weapons in nature, and increasingly medicine, for combating microbial infection and biofilms. Self-assembled peptides harness a “bottom-up” approach, whereby the primary peptide sequence may be modified with natural and unnatural amino acids to produce an inherently antimicrobial hydrogel. Gelation may be tailored to occur in the presence of physiological and infective indicators (e.g. pH, enzymes) and therefore allow local, targeted antimicrobial therapy at the site of infection. Peptides demonstrate inherent biocompatibility, antimicrobial activity, biodegradability and numerous functional groups. They are therefore prime candidates for the production of polymeric molecules that have the potential to be conjugated to biomaterials with precision. Non-native chemistries and functional groups are easily incorporated into the peptide backbone allowing peptide hydrogels to be tailored to specific functional requirements. This article reviews an area of increasing interest, namely self-assembled peptides and their potential therapeutic applications as innovative hydrogels and biomaterials in the prevention of biofilm-related infection.

Anti-biofilm activity of ultrashort cinnamic acid peptide derivatives against medical device-related pathogens

The threat of antimicrobial resistance has placed increasing emphasis on the development of innovative approaches to eradicate multidrug-resistant pathogens. Biofilm-forming microorganisms, for example, Staphylococcus epidermidis and Staphylococcus aureus, are responsible for increased incidence of biomaterial infection, extended hospital stays and patient morbidity and mortality. This paper highlights the potential of ultrashort tetra-peptide conjugated to hydrophobic cinnamic acid derivatives. These peptidomimetic molecules demonstrate selective and highly potent activity against resistant biofilm forms of Gram-positive medical device-related pathogens. 3-(4-Hydroxyphenyl)propionic)-Orn-Orn-Trp-Trp-NH2 displays particular promise with minimum biofilm eradication concentration (MBEC) values of 125 µg/ml against methicillin sensitive (ATCC 29213) and resistant (ATCC 43300) S. aureus and activity shown against biofilm forms of Escherichia coli (MBEC: 1000 µg/ml). Kill kinetics confirms complete eradication of established 24-h biofilms at MBEC with 6-h exposure. Reduced cell cytotoxicity, relative to Gram-positive pathogens, was proven via tissue culture (HaCaT) and haemolysis assays (equine erythrocytes).

Existing in nature as part of the immune response, antimicrobial peptides display great promise for exploitation by the pharmaceutical industry in order to increase the library of available therapeutic molecules. Ultrashort variants are particularly promising for translation as clinical therapeutics as they are more cost-effective, easier to synthesise and can be tailored to specific functional requirements based on the primary sequence allowing factors such as spectrum of activity to be varied.

Quando as crianças contam histórias: estudo para o desenvolvimento de uma aplicação multimédia interativa de suporte ao conto de histórias por crianças do 1º CEB

Concetualmente ancorado em referenciais teóricos que demonstram o papel fundamental da narrativa e a ubiquidade dos produtos dos esquemas narrativos nos vários domínios da vida humana, bem como a importância do desenvolvimento de competências narrativas adequadas enquanto processo determinante no sentido da construção da literacia, este trabalho procurou compreender os processos de estruturação e a estrutura de histórias contadas por crianças do 1º Ciclo do Ensino Básico (CEB), numa abordagem morfológica suportada pela teoria e modelo de Vladimir Propp, no sentido da concetualização e prototipagem de uma aplicação multimédia de suporte ao conto de histórias. Os estudos empíricos conduzidos, de natureza comparativo-exploratória, permitiram que as crianças assumissem o papel de contadoras de histórias e informantes, fornecendo-nos o corpus e conteúdo para análises morfológicas e de conteúdo, sobretudo qualitativas e com objetivos fundamentalmente descritivos. Os resultados do estudo suportaram o delineamento de linhas orientadoras para o desenvolvimento do modelo concetual e requisitos funcionais de uma aplicação multimédia de suporte ao conto de histórias, de natureza educativa, que veio a designar-se por Curucucu©, Conto eu ou contas tu?. O processo de prototipagem da aplicação multimédia implementou uma abordagem iterativa e centrada no aluno para efeitos de concetualização, desenho, implementação e testes da ferramenta e tendo como preocupação central o desenvolvimento de interfaces adequadas, quer às crianças, quer aos objetivos e contextos de utilização, integrando crianças e professores do 1.º CEB, bem como outros informantes (na qualidade de peritos) em fases específicas do processo. Para além das limitações encontradas no estudo, avançam-se propostas de investigação futura.