The pros and cons of Unix and Windows security policies

Supporters frequently tout Windows NT as being the most secure commercially available operating system. Others tend to believe this opinion after hearing of Unix's many infamous security vulnerabilities. In reality, the two operating systems have far more in common from a security point of view than people expect. This, then, makes it difficult to honestly assert that NT is more secure than Unix. By providing a brief introduction to the security architectures of Unix and Windows, we hope to convince readers that both operating systems have substantial merit from a security point of view and that neither operating system offers clearly superior security     

A rule-based robot scheduling system for flexible manufacturing cells

In this research we examine a class of flexible manufacturing cells (FMC) containing a robot. The role of the robot is to load parts onto machines, to unload parts from machines, and to transport parts between machines. Since the productivity of an FMC is directly proportional to the level of productive work performed by the robot, the manner in which robots move between machines affects productivity. The problem of finding efficient robot schedules/tours is therefore one of substantial economic significance in the operation of a FMC. Unfortunately, in many practical situations it is difficult to develop efficient robot schedules given the dynamic environments in which they exist. We devise a rule-based system to assist the cell supervisor in making good decisions by dynamically coordinating the available information during the production process. The rule-based system combines an algorithmic procedure to deal with a well-structured environment and a flexible heuristic approach employed to deal with less well-structured environments. Both the algorithmic and heuristic procedures are applied separately, then together, to control the robot's movement in a simulation experiment. We show that there is a predictable tradeoff between the quality of the resulting schedule and the information contents of heuristic used.     

Evaluation of a high‐volume,low‐latency market data processing system implemented with IBM middleware

A stock market data processing system that can handle high data volumes at low latencies is critical to market makers. Such systems play a critical role in algorithmic trading, risk analysis, market surveillance, and many other related areas. The current systems tend to use specialized software and custom processors. We show that such a system can be built with general‐purpose middleware and run on commodity hardware. The middleware we use is IBM System S which includes transport technology from IBM WebSphere MQ Low Latency Messaging (LLM). Our performance evaluation consists of two parts. First, we determined the effectiveness of each system optimization that the hardware and software infrastructure makes available. These optimizations were implemented at all software levels—application, middleware, and operating system. Second, we evaluated our system on different hardware platforms. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Linux Support for Fast Transparent General Purpose Checkpoint/Restart of Multithreaded Processes in Loadable Kernel Module

Checkpoint/Restart is the ability to save the state of a running application so that it can later resume its execution from the time of the checkpoint. These are techniques with many potential applications, including establishment of a fault-tolerant environment, improving system resource utilization, and true migration of a process. With increasing hardware speed and size of clusters the average time between failures has been reduced. Therefore, fault tolerance and ability to checkpoint a process have become inevitable. Almost all platforms deployed for high-performance computing support process checkpoint/restart. Linux as one of the popular operating systems does not provide a general purpose implementation. Some are limited to specific type of parallel programming library, confined to some unique well-behaved type of applications, or reliant on specific features in kernel which could be missing on many occasions. Most of implementations demand elaborate practice of recompiling a whole kernel to apply required patches. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of multithreaded process checkpoint/restart system for Linux which provide capability of dynamic extension to increase compatibility and reduce system overhead. It does not impose any requirement on the existence of a special facility in the operating system and can do checkpoint/restart of an application independent of their behavior and fully transparent. The entire system is absolutely implemented in multiple kernel loadable modules, which result in ease of use and eliminate the burden of complex system administration.     

Monitoring applications: An immune inspired algorithm for software-fault detection

Large-scale software systems are in general difficult to manage and monitor. In many cases, these systems display unexpected behavior, especially after being updated or when changes occur in their environment (operating system upgrades or hardware migrations, to name a few). Therefore, to handle a changing environment, it is desirable to base fault detection and performance monitoring on self-adaptive techniques.Several studies have been carried out in the past which, inspired on the immune system, aim at solving complex technological problems. Among them, anomaly detection, pattern recognition, system security and data mining are problems that have been addressed in this framework.There are similarities between the software fault detection problem and the identification of the pathogens that are found in natural immune systems. Being inspired by vaccination and negative and clonal selection observed in these systems, we developed an effective self-adaptive model to monitor software applications analyzing the metrics of system resources.     

Detection of Mutual Inconsistency in Distributed Systems

Many distributed systems are now being developed to provide users with convenient access to data via some kind of communications network. In many cases it is desirable to keep the system functioning even when it is partitioned by network failures. A serious problem in this context is how one can support redundant copies of resources such as files (for the sake of reliability) while simultaneously monitoring their mutual consistency (the equality of multiple copies). This is difficult since network faiures can lead to inconsistency, and disrupt attempts at maintaining consistency. In fact, even the detection of inconsistent copies is a nontrivial problem. Naive methods either 1) compare the multiple copies entirely or 2) perform simple tests which will diagnose some consistent copies as inconsistent. Here a new approach, involving version vectors and origin points, is presented and shown to detect single file, multiple copy mutual inconsistency effectively. The approach has been used in the design of LOCUS, a local network operating system at UCLA.     

Principles to Support Modular Software Construction

The construction of large software systems is always achieved through assembly of independently written components — program modules. For these software components to work together, they must share a common set of data types and principles for representing structured data such as arrays of values and files. This common set of tools for creating and operating on data objects is provided by the infrastructure of the computer system: the hardware, operating system and runtime code. Because the nature and properties of these tools are crucial for correct operation of software components and their inter-operation, it is essential to have a precise specification that may be used for verifying correctness of application software on one hand, and to verify correctness of system behavior on the other. We call such a specification a program execution model (PXM). It is evident that the properties of the PXM implemented by a computer system can have serious impact on the ability of application programmers to practice modular software construction. This paper discusses the concept of program execution models and presents a set of principles that a PXM must satisfy to provide a sound basis for modular software construction. Because parallel program execution on computer systems with many processing units is an essential part of contemporary computing environments, the expression of parallelism and modular software construction using components involving parallel operations is included in this treatment. The conclusion is that it is possible to build computer systems that implement a PXM within which any parallel program may be used, unmodified, as a component for building more substantial parallel programs.     

基于ZigBee无线传感器网络的实验室智能教学系统

针对教育中由于缺乏记录数据而无法分析学生成绩导致在动手能力经验培养上花费太高的问题,设计了一种基于ZigBee无线传感网络的实验室智能教学系统。首先,基于嵌入式操作系统TinyOS设计了无线传感网络节点;然后,设计了采集仪和协调器;最后,利用本文设计的系统对80名学生进行了实验,实验及分析结果表明,无线传感器网络学习环境明显有助于实验课程,学生成绩有了明显提高,相比高分组学生,低分组学生的成绩提高更为明显。     

基于Petri网的信息流安全属性的分析与验证*

信息流安全属性的定义均基于不同的语义模型,很难作出比较,以Petri网作为描述安全系统的统一模型,在Petri网上定义四种常见的安全属性,并分析它们之间的逻辑关系。在信息流安全属性验证方面,传统的方法称为展开方法,该方法适用于确定型系统,而对于非确定型系统,该方法是可靠的,但不完备。进一步对Petri网上已经定义的四种属性给出可靠完备的验证算法,并开发出相应的验证工具。最后通过实例说明了验证方法在搜索隐通道方面的应用。     

基于服务器虚拟化技术的网络系统实训研究

网络系统实训是针对操作系统开展的实训活动。相对于一般的在机房进行的应用软件实训,它具有实训数据保存困难、实训环境复杂等特点,因此在普通机房进行网络系统实训具有较大困难。利用服务器虚拟化技术构建网上的网络系统实训平台则可以很好解决网络系统实训在普通机房中出现的问题,提高网络系统实训的效率和效果。     

联合LDPC码与clipping降OFDM系统峰均比的方法*

针对正交频分复用(OFDM)系统中存在的高峰均比问题,提出了一种简单而有效的降低峰均比(PAPR)的联合方法,即将低密度奇偶校验码（LDPC）与传统的限幅(clipping)技术相结合的方法。该方法通过clipping技术降低OFDM信号的PAPR,同时结合LDPC码改善clipping技术带来的系统误比特率（BER）恶化与频域滤波降低带外功率辐射。MATLAB仿真结果表明,该方案能够简单而有效地降低PAPR并提高系统的BER性能,以及抑制带外功率辐射,证明了该联合方法的有效性。     

中间件技术在汽车客运联网售票系统中的应用

如今计算机技术迅速发展,为了解决分布式环境问题,使得中间件技术受到人们广泛的关注。该文根据实际的引用环境,针对具体的应用系统——汽车客运联网售票系统设计和实现方案进行研究。并提出了基于中间件技术的技术方案,解决了汽车客运联网售票系统中的诸如：难以扩充、不易维护、异构环境下难以互操作等问题。     

An expert system on design of liquid-retaining structures with blackboard architecture

Abstract: The design of liquid‐retaining structures involves many decisions to be made by the designer based on rules of thumb, heuristics, judgement, codes of practice and previous experience. Structural design problems are often ill structured and there is a need to develop programming environments that can incorporate engineering judgement along with algorithmic tools. Recent developments in artificial intelligence have made it possible to develop an expert system that can provide expert advice to the user in the selection of design criteria and design parameters. This paper introduces the development of an expert system in the design of liquid‐retaining structures using blackboard architecture. An expert system shell, Visual Rule Studio, is employed to facilitate the development of this prototype system. It is a coupled system combining symbolic processing with traditional numerical processing. The expert system developed is based on British Standards Code of Practice BS8007. Explanations are made to assist inexperienced designers or civil engineering students to learn how to design liquid‐retaining structures effectively and sustainably in their design practices. The use of this expert system in disseminating heuristic knowledge and experience to practitioners and engineering students is discussed.     

Algorithmic Concurrent Error Detection in Complex Digital-Processing Systems

Fault tolerance capabilities are becoming a fundamental requirement in many designs. Improving these systems' dependability under demanding environmental and operating conditions requires new techniques that use concurrent error detection (CED) strategies to guarantee data integrity. The system-level algorithmic CED methodology uses selective redundancy for online monitoring of system-level properties, without requiring any modifications to the target system.     

动态可扩展操作系统的研究

动态扩展技术的研究能够解决操作系统设计中许多长期存在并难以解决的问题。这些问题包括：如何在提高应用程序的性能同时保证系统的安全性;如何提高操作系统使用的灵活性;如何包容和管理随着操作系统发展而不断增加的复杂性。文章对当前各种操作系统扩展类型进行详细分类,具体介绍了各种动态扩展技术,评估了不同的扩展技术对操作系统性能和安全性的影响,最后提出了需要研究的内容以及其中的关键问题。     

算法程序变换研究与进展

开发算法程序是计算机科学领域中最具挑战性的问题之一。为了提高算法程序的可靠性和生产效率,人们正在追求其开发的自动化。算法程序变换是实现算法程序开发自动化的重要途径,已成为程序设计方法学和软件自动化领域中的重要课题,目前已取得很大进展。本文介绍了算法程序变换的相关概念,给出了算法程序变换的分类,并从方法学、语言、算法设计能力、支撑工具及其适用领域等方面分析和比较了几个有代表性的算法程序变换研究项目,讨论了当前研究的不足以及今后的研究方向。     

OpenCL performance portability for general‐purpose computation on graphics processor units: an exploration on cryptographic primitives

The modern trend toward heterogeneous many‐core architectures has led to high architectural diversity in both high performance and high‐end embedded systems. To effectively exploit the computational resources of such a wide range of architectures, programming languages and APIs such as OpenCL have become increasingly popular. Although OpenCL provides functional code portability and the ability to fine tune the application to the target hardware, providing performance portability is still an open problem. Thus, many research works have investigated the optimization of specific combinations of application and target platform. In this paper, we aim at leveraging the experience obtained in the implementation of algorithms from the cryptography domain to provide a set of guidelines for modern many‐core heterogeneous architecture performance portability and to establish a base on which domain‐specific languages and compiler transformations could be built in the near future. We study algorithmic choices and the effect of compiler transformations on three representative applications in the chosen domain on a set of seven target platforms. To estimate how well the application fits the architecture, we define a metric of computational intensity both for the architecture and the application implementation. Besides being useful to compare either different implementation or algorithmic choices and their fitness to a specific architecture, it can also be useful to the compiler to guide the code optimization process. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Global communications on locally connected message-passing parallel computers

Modern multicomputer components such as the inmos T800 and the Texas Instruments TMS320C40 provide hardware which supports efficient communication between directly connected processors. The paper describes techniques which have been developed to provide efficient global communications for machines based on these and similar processors. This service is implemented by a packet-routing kernel adopting a standard, portable communications interface. The design of this kernel is discussed with particular emphasis on the manner in which it guarantees reliable, lightweight, deadlock-free communication for arbitrary interconnection topologies. The kernel has been developed and tested on transputers. Extensive results on the performance of the router are presented to demonstrate that the substantial advantages associated with its well founded, structured design are not at odds with high efficiency. This router has been used to support several multi-transputer environments, including a commercially available POSIX-conformant operating system and a distributed occam environment freed from conventional configuration constraints.     

SQL Access: an implementation of the ISO Remote Database AccessStandard

As an enterprise begins tying heterogeneous systems into a single information system, it encounters the difficult task of interfacing different platforms running different operating systems, network protocols, and data management systems. Bringing all these elements together into a coherent information resource can require substantial effort and might result in a system that needs the interfaces reworked every time a new platform or product is introduced into the system. To address these issues, the International Organization for Standardization has drafted the Remote Database Access Standard to provide a protocol that can be universally accepted, implemented, and validated, and thereby provide users with a single, well-defined interface for heterogeneous environments. Based on a client-server architecture, RDA uses well-defined Open Systems Interconnect services as the basis for the RDA services     

A graphical user interface server for unix

The UNIX operating system has attained widespread popularity because of its power, flexibility and elegance. However, the common user interfaces (shells) have been criticized as being cryptic and difficult to use, especially for novices. In this paper, we present a user interface server that can be used to provide a graphical shell for UNIX. This shell helps to overcome a number of difficulties faced by both novices and experts. Although it is largely intended to assist novices, it is also designed not to become a hindrance for expert users and does not sacrifice the basic power and flexibility of UNIX. The server is designed to augment rather than replace text-based interfaces and can be used from a variety of different interactive programs in addition to shells.