VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Partitioning the Trusted Computing Baseof Applications on Commodity Systems

Secure containers implemented in both software and hardware are being used to isolate and reduce attack vectors on executing software. The isolation of software partitions protects the data and the execution from external software (e.g. the OS, other applications, other software partitions within the same application). Despite the existence of many hardware isolation technologies such as ARM TrustZone, Intel Software Guard Extension (SGX), and others, it is still not clear how to efficiently use isolation to secure applications data. This is particularly the case when considering vulnerabilities within the application, strong adversaries who have control over the OS, and performance requirements of the application.
Previous work demonstrated the efficiency of SGX in protecting against memory leakage vulnerabilities. However, since SGX allows separation of privileges through partitioning monolithic applications into compartments, using it in mitigating faulty API vulnerabilities or Buffer over-writes is far from being straightforward. To illustrate, we found that many systems with ”secure containers” capabilities do not deliver the security expected from containers, which indicates an absence of a methodology for using Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) systems. For example, our analysis of Samsung KNOX architecture revealed that such systems cannot protect against memory leakage, buffer over-reads, buffer over-writes, and others.
In this thesis two research hypotheses are investigated. First, privilege separation through application partitioning enhanced TEE can be used to mitigate software vulnerabilities, protect containers from privileged kernel, while maintaining the reasonable performance of an application . Second, partitioning patterns can be used to mitigate different threats. We demonstrate how vulnerabilities can be mitigated with secure containers and how the specific design of the secure containers determines the success of the desired protection from such a paradigm.
This research uncovers the potential of TEE in separating privileges in applications using hardware based technologies instead of access control enforced in several layers by software. The realisation of the potential of secure containers will help corporations and enterprises design better secure systems and devices that protect end-users data from application and system vulnerabilities and attacks performed by software.

Advisor: Martin, A
Investigating the potential for improving the accuracy of weather and climate forecasts by varying numerical precision in computer models

Accurate forecasts of weather and climate will become increasingly important as the world adapts to anthropogenic climatic change. Forecasts' accuracy is limited by the computer power available to forecast centres, which determines the maximum resolution, ensemble size and complexity of atmospheric models. Furthermore, faster supercomputers are increasingly energy-hungry and unaffordable to run.
In this thesis, a new means of making computer simulations more efficient is presented that could lead to more accurate forecasts without increasing computational costs. This 'scale-selective reduced precision' technique builds on previous work that shows that weather models can be run with almost all real numbers represented in 32 bit precision or lower without any impact on forecast accuracy, challenging the paradigm that 64 bits of numerical precision are necessary for sufficiently accurate computations. The observational and model errors inherent in weather and climate simulations, combined with the sensitive dependence on initial conditions of the atmosphere and atmospheric models, renders such high precision unnecessary, especially at small scales. The 'scale-selective' technique introduced here therefore represents smaller, less influential scales of motion with less precision. Experiments are described in which reduced precision is emulated on conventional hardware and applied to three models of increasing complexity. In a three-scale extension of the Lorenz '96 toy model, it is demonstrated that high resolution scale-dependent precision forecasts are more accurate than low resolution high-precision forecasts of a similar computational cost. A spectral model based on the Surface Quasi-Geostrophic Equations is used to determine a power law describing how low precision can be safely reduced as a function of spatial scale; and experiments using four historical test-cases in an open-source version of the real-world Integrated Forecasting System demonstrate that a similar power law holds for the spectral part of this model. It is concluded that the scale-selective approach could be beneficially employed to optimally balance forecast cost and accuracy if utilised on real reduced precision hardware.

Keywords: Efficiency
Forecasting
Climate change
Reduced Precision
Error growth
Surface Quasi-Geostrophic
Inexact hardware
Emulator
Lorenz '96
Open IFS
Numerical Precision
Weather
Advisor: Palmer, T
The unmanned revolution: how drones are revolutionising warfare

Are drones revolutionary? Reading about military unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or ‘drones’, one could be led to believe that drones are a revolutionary technology, set to fundamentally change warfare. Their fast proliferation, the association with Science Fiction, combined with the secrecy that surrounds drone use has led many to conclude that the ‘Unmanned Revolution’ is upon us.
This thesis studies the Unmanned Revolution. It develops a framework based on the concept of the ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’ and applies it to the study of three countries’ drone uses and integration into their armed forces. It furthermore explores the role that the designation as revolutionary has played for the integration and use of UAVs in the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
It shows that drones have proven their worth in military operations and compares the three countries’ experiences. This thesis’ detailed assessment of how the different countries have adopted drones and what implication this adoption has had, makes it a work of reference, in particular with regard to the German and British case studies.
Assessing five types of changes – operational, doctrinal, strategic, organisational, and social and societal – this thesis argues that the most fundamental, and possibly revolutionary, change caused by military drones is social, namely, the fundamentally changed experience of war by combatants. In addition, it highlights country-specific changes.
It concludes that the designation of drones as revolutionary has had an important impact in one country, Germany, although in the opposite way than initially expected. Namely, the intense debate around UAVs has hindered drone procurement and doctrinal thinking. In the other two countries, the Unmanned Revolution narrative was less prevalent and hence less influential.
As drones are proliferating globally, I hope my thesis can be of use to policy-makers, military decision-makers as well as researchers worldwide.

Keywords: Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
Technology and Warfare
British Armed Forces
Bundeswehr
Military Technology
Revolution in Military Affairs
Drones
Advisor: Strachan, H
Ceadel, M
Kello, L
Contesting human knowledge and god

This dissertation is as much a study of Enlightenment intellectual history as a reflection on the Enlightenment as a historiographical concept. It reconstructs George Berkeley's writings so as to explore his dialectics of Enlightenment in terms of the conceptual conflicts between two languages of Enlightenment. It challenges (1) the predominant philosophical explication of Berkeley's thought that places him in philosophical traditions such as idealism and empiricism, (2) recent histories of Berkeley's 'non-philosophical' writings that tend to interpret him in the light of historiographical arguments about Enlightenment political economy and, in turn, take him as a case for the Irish participation in European Enlightenment, and (3) the historiographical conception of the Enlightenment that is preoccupied with the secular modernity thesis.
The Introduction analyses the two historiographical grounds of this dissertation – Berkeley studies and Enlightenment intellectual history, and explains how this thesis intends to interact with these discourses. Chapter I explicates how Berkeley exposed the methodological failure of the new science, and shows why Berkeley thought a mathematically informed natural philosophy would threaten the stability of a protestant state. Chapter II delineates Berkeley's argument for the reasonableness of Christianity by tracing his demonstration of the divine being through a cooperation between metaphysics and natural philosophy.
Chapter III shows Berkeley's criticism of the new science's theories of progress that defined 'an Enlightened age' as an improved human condition after the emancipation of rational agency from ecclesiastical and political authorities. Chapter IV turns to Berkeley's own theory of improvement based on his understandings of the socio-economic difficulties in eighteenth-century Ireland. Chapter V examines Berkeley's concern about the actual, social consequences of free-thinkers' theories of progress. Chapter VI explores Berkeley's argument for a genuine, theological Enlightenment as a counterpart to the religiously heterodox Enlightenment. The Conclusion asks the question about the relevance of this thesis, drawing attention to the idea of a critical and self-critical historiography as a way to re-accessing secular modernity's sense of historicity.

Advisor: Young, B
Multiphase modelling of coffee bean roasting

The coffee industry relies on fundamental research to improve the techniques and processes related to its products. However, the exploitation of mathematical models that provide insight into improving the roasting of coffee beans has been largely unexplored. In this thesis, we develop mathematical models to understand specific processes in a roasting coffee bean that are crucial in flavour development and consistency. We explore these processes using several models in a multiphase framework to highlight how phase changes, gas pressures, and various chemical reactions occur in different parts of the bean. These new models are then compared to new and existing experimental data, where the merits and pitfalls of each model are then discussed.
One main phenomenon that is crucial to the roasting process is the evaporation of water. Various models of evaporation rates are proposed and incorporated into the multiphase models, where the resulting qualitative features of the behaviour are discussed. The behaviour of these multiphase models is studied using asymptotic analysis and the leading-order water and vapour transport predicted from this analysis faithfully reproduce the salient features of the model.
We also examine how deformations and material stresses occur during the roasting process. We model the cellulose structure of a coffee bean as a poroviscoelastic material and couple the resulting constitutive equations with aforementioned multiphase models. The qualitative behaviour of this coupled model is discussed for various parameter regimes and used to explain various physical phenomena observed during the roasting process. A summary of key findings is then presented.

Advisor: Please, C
Van Gorder, R
Studies towards quantum magnonics

This thesis reports on recent results which pave the way for future experiments in the emerging field of quantum magnonics.
Chapter 1 presents a brief outline of the field of magnonics, which provides the context in which quantum magnonics has begun to develop.
Chapter 2 provides an introduction to the theory of spin waves, which is necessary to understand the experiments reported in the thesis.
In Chapter 3, the experimental methods and materials used to carry out the investigations in the thesis are described.
Chapter 4 describes the coupling of resonant magnon modes in a sphere of yttrium-iron garnet to photon modes in a coplanar-waveguide resonator. Strong coupling is achieved to multiple magnon modes, and a theoretical model is used to identify the magnon modes which couple most strongly to the photon mode.
In Chapter 5, the behaviour of propagating magnon modes is investigated in a waveguide formed from a thin film of yttrium-iron garnet. Two different configurations are investigated supporting different types of propagating mode, namely backward-volume and surface spin waves. Simulations are performed which reproduce the main features of the data.
Chapter 6 characterises the effect of the gadolinium-gallium garnet substrate on propagating spin waves. The magnitude of this effect is dependent on both the orientation and temperature of the sample.
Finally, Chapter 7 provides a short summary of the results of the thesis, and speculates on how they may inform future work in the field.

Advisor: Karenowska, A
Efficient Supervision for Robot Learning via Imitation, Simulation, and Adaptation

In order to enable more widespread application of robots, we are required to reduce the human effort for the introduction of existing robotic platforms to new environments and tasks. In this thesis, we identify three complementary strategies to address this challenge, via the use of imitation learning, domain adaptation, and transfer learning based on simulations. The overall work strives to reduce the effort of generating training data by employing inexpensively obtainable labels and by transferring information between different domains with deviating underlying properties.
Imitation learning enables a straightforward way for untrained personnel to teach robots to perform tasks by providing demonstrations, which represent a comparably inexpensive source of supervision. We develop a scalable approach to identify the preferences underlying demonstration data via the framework of inverse reinforcement learning. The method enables integration of the extracted preferences as cost maps into existing motion planning systems. We further incorporate prior domain knowledge and demonstrate that the approach outperforms the baselines including manually crafted cost functions.
In addition to employing low-cost labels from demonstration, we investigate the adaptation of models to domains without available supervisory information. Specifically, the challenge of appearance changes in outdoor robotics such as illumination and weather shifts is addressed using an adversarial domain adaptation approach. A principal advantage of the method over prior work is the straightforwardness of adapting arbitrary, state-of-the-art neural network architectures. Finally, we demonstrate performance benefits of the method for semantic segmentation of drivable terrain.
Our last contribution focuses on simulation to real world transfer learning, where the characteristic differences are not only regarding the visual appearance but the underlying system dynamics. Our work aims at parallel training in both systems and mutual guidance via auxiliary alignment rewards to accelerate training for real world systems. The approach is shown to outperform various baselines as well as a unilateral alignment variant.

Keywords: Imitation Learning
Domain Adaptation
Inverse Reinforcement Learning
Transfer Learning
Autonomous Driving
Mobile Robotics
Advisor: Posner, I
Newman, P
Geometry constrained main-group compounds for the activation of small molecules

A series of base-supported group 13 complexes bearing N,N-bis(3,5-di-tert-butyl-2-phenolate)amide pincer ligand, (ONO)3–, are reported (E(ONO)·L (E = B, Al, Ga; L = Lewis base). B(ONO) type compounds were formed in-situ and are capable of THF activation. Alternatively, a NMe3 stabilised boron compound was shown to activate the O–H bond of water and ethanol via frustrated Lewis pair (FLP) type reactivity. The aluminium analogue of E(ONO)·L displays a bimetallic structure in its molecular structure and was shown to be capable of O–H bond cleavage of ethanol across the Al–N bond. Finally, a neutral gallium hydride species, Ga(H){ON(H)O}, was syntheisised which is capable of activating aldehydes to form gallium alkoxide compounds. These alkoxide compounds could be employed as an active catalyst for the hydroboration with benzaldehyde.
Group 14 geometrically constrained anionic compounds, [E(ONO)]– (E = Ge, Sn), can be prepared via a two-step process. In the case of [Ge(ONO)]–, it undergoes facile addition of water and ethanol to form trigonal bipyramidal germanium(IV) complexes. In the case of [Sn(ONO)]–, it undergoes a transmetallation reaction with gallium chloride allowing to access a bimetallic {Ga(ONO)·THF}2 complex. In addition, four novel neutral constrained geometry group 14 species bearing a xanthene based ligand framework, E(NON), are also reported. The LUMOs of such species are chemically accessible using KOtBu.
The arsenic analogue, As(ONO), was prepared and shown that it exhibits no reactivity towards ammonia in contrast to its phosphorus analogue which gives rise to a phosphorus(V) complex, highlighting the increased stability of the +3 oxidation state on descending group 15, and the difficulty associated with accessing arsenic(V) complexes. The HOMO and LUMO of As(ONO) were accessible by KNu (Nu = OtBu and NPh2) and ROTf (R = H, Me), respectively. In addition, we report the synthesis of a phosphorus(III) complex bearing the 2,2´-[iminobis(methylene)]-bis[4-methoxy-phenol] ligand, (P(ONO*)), which undergoes hydrolysis reactions. The lone pair on phosphorus was accessible using borane to afford Lewis acid–base adducts.

Advisor: Goicoechea, J
Controls on fracture abundance in gently deformed carbonates

Fractures can profoundly affect the capacity of carbonate reservoirs to store and permeate fluids, depending on the properties and abundance of fractures. Fractures exist abundantly in carbonate outcrops; however, their abundance in subsurface carbonates is obscure because of the data shortages and uncertainties about the factors that drive fracturing in sedimentary basins. The objective of this research is twofold. The first is to study abundance of fractures in gently deformed carbonates, which were generally overlooked. The second is to address measuring fracture abundance using electrical borehole imaging, which is the mostly used method to describe reservoir fractures. Fractures were studied from areas in the gently folded and shallowly (less than 2 km depth) buried interiors of the Arabian Platform. The study areas include outcrops and reservoirs of the Late Jurassic Arab carbonates in the sprawling homocline of Central Arabia and a low-relief dome in Eastern Arabia. The Cenozoic Rus carbonates in the dome outcrops were also studied. Fracture abundance was measured from the outcrops using scanlines and from the reservoirs using core and borehole images of extended-reach drilling. Many systematic properties were drawn on mineralization, orientation, and abundance of fractures. The fractures were found to be opening mode, mostly barren, and exist with subvertical dips, and some regional trends. The fractures display significantly differing ranges of abundance that were controlled by the subtle structural bending of the dome and homocline, carbonate lithofacies, and paucity of fracture mineralization. The borehole imaging was found to significantly lower fracture abundance. The detection of fractures was subject to several factors including size of fracture widths, nature of fracture roughness, and present-day stress field. The results have implications for modeling of fracture systems and tectonic regimes. For example, finding that fracture abundance varies drastically in such gently deformed regions indicates that carbonates are very sensitive to fracturing processes. Moreover, the borehole imaging limitations influence the models of fracture abundance and orientations, which are often used to deduce paleo tectonic regimes and present-day geodynamics in carbonate reservoirs.

Keywords: Fractures
Carbonate reservoirs
Arabia
Stress
Arab Reservoirs
Advisor: Cartwright, J
Walker, R
Completing the global inventory of plants – species discovery and diversity

To complete an online world Flora by 2020 rapid progress is required towards understanding the taxonomy and distributions of the world’s plants. This ambitious target set by the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation is hampered by two facts; first, many species of seed plant remain poorly known and second, the process of improving taxonomy and discovering species is not well understood. Here I investigate in detail the taxonomy and process of species discovery in a genus of tropical plants, Aframomum by examining specimens, taxonomic literature and authors of specimen determinations. I demonstrate that &GT;50% of Aframomum specimens did not have the correct name prior to a recent comprehensive revision, that the number of specimens in herbaria doubled between 1970 and 2000, and that these results are also found in other taxa. I deconstruct the process of ‘species discovery’ by identifying four key events: Initial collection, publication, conservation assessment, and distribution mapping. The time lags between the initial collection and completion of a) an accurate conservation assessment (101 years) and b) a comprehensive distribution map (115 years) demonstrate that many seed plant species published in the last 100 years are not fully understood. This is partly due to the fact that most species protologues (&GT;90%) cite too few specimens at publication to produce an accurate conservation assessment. Furthermore, I explore variation in species’ distribution patterns over time, taking account of specimen misidentification. Taken together the thesis identifies the lack of taxonomic capacity to efficiently deal with the tremendous influx of specimens since 1970, the poor current state of taxonomic knowledge of many taxa, and three significant time lags in the process of species discovery. Focused taxonomic effort is required for the successful completion of a world online Flora with conservation assessments to meet the 2020 GSPC target.

Keywords: taxonomy
species distributions
species discovery
conservation
Advisor: Scotland, R
Harris, D
Seneca's influence with Nero

This dissertation attempts to illuminate the enigma of Seneca as seen in Tacitus, Seneca politicus, and his capacity at the Palace. The project thus evaluates the three most accessible sources for both how Nero would have viewed Seneca and how Seneca presented himself to Nero—Nero’s childhood and education, Apocolocyntosis, and De clementia. Assessment of these sources through the game-theoretical model of signaling and signal games forms a model of their relationship, which itself becomes the thesis of the dissertation. The thesis contends that, post accession, Seneca en-gaged Nero in a didactic relationship focusing on philosophy, or rather, on his own insights into ethical decision-making and morality in interpersonal dealings. But the details surrounding this deduction nuance its interpretation. His presentation of philosophy to Nero smacks of practicality. It is opportunistic, utilizing the philosophi-cally propaedeutic nature of Nero’s education; and his own contribution to the imperi-al intellect, clementia, is not convincingly Stoic. Seneca wished to be trusted for his ability to offer advice on interpersonal dealings, and to form acute judgments about other people and their actions.

Advisor: Clarke, K
Ash, R
Purcell, N