A Hardware Platform for Ensuring OS Kernel Integrity on RISC-V

The OS kernel is typically preassumed as a trusted computing base in most computing systems. However, it also implies that once an attacker takes control of the OS kernel, the attacker can seize the entire system. Because of such security importance of the OS kernel, many works have proposed security solutions for the OS kernel using an external hardware module located outside the processor. By doing this, these works can realize the physical isolation of security solutions from the OS kernel running in the processor, but they cannot access the inner state of the processor, which attackers can manipulate. Thus, they elaborated several methods to overcome such limited capability of external hardware. However, those methods usually come with several side effects, such as high-performance overhead, kernel code modifications, and/or excessively complicated hardware designs. In this paper, we introduce RiskiM, a new hardware-based monitoring platform to ensure kernel integrity from outside the host system. To deliver the inner state of the host to RiskiM, we have devised a hardware interface architecture, called PEMI. Through PEMI, RiskiM is supplied with all internal states of the host system essential for fulfilling its monitoring task to protect the kernel. To empirically validate our monitoring platform’s security strength and performance, we have fully implemented PEMI and RiskiM on a RISC-V based processor and FPGA, respectively. Our experiments show that RiskiM succeeds in the host kernel protection by detecting even the advanced attacks which could circumvent previous solutions, yet suffering from virtually no aforementioned side effects.

Download Full-text

StealthDB: a Scalable Encrypted Database with Full SQL Query Support

Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies ◽

10.2478/popets-2019-0052 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 2019 (3) ◽

pp. 370-388 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Dhinakaran Vinayagamurthy ◽

Alexey Gribov ◽

Sergey Gorbunov

Keyword(s):

High Performance ◽

Trusted Computing ◽

Database Systems ◽

Sensitive Data ◽

Garbled Circuits ◽

Cryptographic Algorithms ◽

Trusted Computing Base ◽

Encrypted Database ◽

Security Guarantees ◽

Sql Query

Abstract Encrypted database systems provide a great method for protecting sensitive data in untrusted infrastructures. These systems are built using either special-purpose cryptographic algorithms that support operations over encrypted data, or by leveraging trusted computing co-processors. Strong cryptographic algorithms (e.g., public-key encryptions, garbled circuits) usually result in high performance overheads, while weaker algorithms (e.g., order-preserving encryption) result in large leakage profiles. On the other hand, some encrypted database systems (e.g., Cipherbase, TrustedDB) leverage non-standard trusted computing devices, and are designed to work around the architectural limitations of the specific devices used. In this work we build StealthDB – an encrypted database system from Intel SGX. Our system can run on any newer generation Intel CPU. StealthDB has a very small trusted computing base, scales to large transactional workloads, requires minor DBMS changes, and provides a relatively strong security guarantees at steady state and during query execution. Our prototype on top of Postgres supports the full TPC-C benchmark with a 30% decrease in the average throughput over an unmodified version of Postgres operating on a 2GB unencrypted dataset.

Download Full-text

Trace nanoanalysis

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100172437 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 52 ◽

pp. 940-941

Author(s):

D. E. Newbury ◽

R. D. Leapman

Keyword(s):

High Performance ◽

Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry ◽

Detection Efficiency ◽

Volume Element ◽

And Performance ◽

Trace Constituents ◽

Secondary Ion ◽

Concentration Levels ◽

Structure Properties

Trace constituents, which can be very loosely defined as those present at concentration levels below 1 percent, often exert influence on structure, properties, and performance far greater than what might be estimated from their proportion alone. Defining the role of trace constituents in the microstructure, or indeed even determining their location, makes great demands on the available array of microanalytical tools. These demands become increasingly more challenging as the dimensions of the volume element to be probed become smaller. For example, a cubic volume element of silicon with an edge dimension of 1 micrometer contains approximately 5×1010 atoms. High performance secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) can be used to measure trace constituents to levels of hundreds of parts per billion from such a volume element (e. g., detection of at least 100 atoms to give 10% reproducibility with an overall detection efficiency of 1%, considering ionization, transmission, and counting).

Download Full-text

Antiepileptics: Significant Differences in Side Effects and Implications for School Behavior and Performance

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e669812011-001 ◽

2011 ◽

Author(s):

Tiffany N. Gerondale

Keyword(s):

Side Effects ◽

School Behavior ◽

And Performance

Download Full-text

https://imsciences.edu.pk/files/journals/vol12_2/New%201%20MA.864.pdf

Business & Economic Review ◽

10.22547/ber/12.2.2 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 19-50 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Muhammad Siddique ◽

Shandana Shoaib ◽

Zahoor Jan

Keyword(s):

Organizational Performance ◽

Structural Equation ◽

High Performance ◽

Service Sector ◽

Performance Outcomes ◽

Theory And Practice ◽

Relational Coordination ◽

Multiple Sources ◽

And Performance ◽

High Level

A key aspect of work processes in service sector firms is the interconnection between tasks and performance. Relational coordination can play an important role in addressing the issues of coordinating organizational activities due to high level of interdependence complexity in service sector firms. Research has primarily supported the aspect that well devised high performance work systems (HPWS) can intensify organizational performance. There is a growing debate, however, with regard to understanding the “mechanism” linking HPWS and performance outcomes. Using relational coordination theory, this study examines a model that examine the effects of subsets of HPWS, such as motivation, skills and opportunity enhancing HR practices on relational coordination among employees working in reciprocal interdependent job settings. Data were gathered from multiple sources including managers and employees at individual, functional and unit levels to know their understanding in relation to HPWS and relational coordination (RC) in 218 bank branches in Pakistan. Data analysis via structural equation modelling, results suggest that HPWS predicted RC among officers at the unit level. The findings of the study have contributions to both, theory and practice.

Download Full-text

Study on strong spinning preparation method and mechanism of the industrial pure titanium ultrafine crystallization

Journal of Engineered Fibers and Fabrics ◽

10.1177/1558925019895256 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 14 ◽

pp. 155892501989525

Author(s):

Yu Yang ◽

Yanyan Jia

Keyword(s):

Heat Treatment ◽

High Performance ◽

Pure Titanium ◽

Grain Structure ◽

Theoretical Research ◽

Ultrafine Grain ◽

Forming Process ◽

Spinning Process ◽

And Performance ◽

Material Utilization

Ultrafine crystallization of industrial pure titanium allowed for higher tensile strength, corrosion resistance, and thermal stability and is therefore widely used in medical instrumentation, aerospace, and passenger vehicle manufacturing. However, the ultrafine crystallizing batch preparation of tubular industrial pure titanium is limited by the development of the spinning process and has remained at the theoretical research stage. In this article, the tubular TA2 industrial pure titanium was taken as the research object, and the ultrafine crystal forming process based on “5-pass strong spin-heat treatment-3 pass-spreading-heat treatment” was proposed. Based on the spinning process test, the ultimate thinning rate of the method is explored and the evolution of the surface microstructure was analyzed by metallographic microscope. The research suggests that the multi-pass, medium–small, and thinning amount of spinning causes the grain structure to be elongated in the axial and tangential directions, and then refined, and the axial fiber uniformity is improved. The research results have certain scientific significance for reducing the consumption of high-performance metals improving material utilization and performance, which also promote the development of ultrafine-grain metals’ preparation technology.

Download Full-text

High-Performance Image Filters via Sparse Approximations

Proceedings of the ACM on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques ◽

10.1145/3406182 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 1-19

Author(s):

Kersten Schuster ◽

Philip Trettner ◽

Leif Kobbelt

Keyword(s):

High Performance ◽

Hardware Acceleration ◽

Optimization Method ◽

Translation Invariant ◽

Approximation Quality ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Sparse Approximations ◽

Image Filters ◽

Good Trade ◽

And Performance

We present a numerical optimization method to find highly efficient (sparse) approximations for convolutional image filters. Using a modified parallel tempering approach, we solve a constrained optimization that maximizes approximation quality while strictly staying within a user-prescribed performance budget. The results are multi-pass filters where each pass computes a weighted sum of bilinearly interpolated sparse image samples, exploiting hardware acceleration on the GPU. We systematically decompose the target filter into a series of sparse convolutions, trying to find good trade-offs between approximation quality and performance. Since our sparse filters are linear and translation-invariant, they do not exhibit the aliasing and temporal coherence issues that often appear in filters working on image pyramids. We show several applications, ranging from simple Gaussian or box blurs to the emulation of sophisticated Bokeh effects with user-provided masks. Our filters achieve high performance as well as high quality, often providing significant speed-up at acceptable quality even for separable filters. The optimized filters can be baked into shaders and used as a drop-in replacement for filtering tasks in image processing or rendering pipelines.

Download Full-text

Low-Process–Voltage–Temperature-Sensitivity Multi-Stage Timing Monitor for System-on-Chip Applications

Electronics ◽

10.3390/electronics10131587 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (13) ◽

pp. 1587

Author(s):

Duo Sheng ◽

Hsueh-Ru Lin ◽

Li Tai

Keyword(s):

High Performance ◽

Power Reduction ◽

System On Chip ◽

Timing Information ◽

Multi Stage ◽

Dynamic Voltage ◽

And Performance ◽

On Chip ◽

Maximum Measurement ◽

Maximum Measurement Error

High performance and complex system-on-chip (SoC) design require a throughput and stable timing monitor to reduce the impacts of uncertain timing and implement the dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) scheme for overall power reduction. This paper presents a multi-stage timing monitor, combining three timing-monitoring stages to achieve a high timing-monitoring resolution and a wide timing-monitoring range simultaneously. Additionally, because the proposed timing monitor has high immunity to the process–voltage–temperature (PVT) variation, it provides a more stable time-monitoring results. The time-monitoring resolution and range of the proposed timing monitor are 47 ps and 2.2 µs, respectively, and the maximum measurement error is 0.06%. Therefore, the proposed multi-stage timing monitor provides not only the timing information of the specified signals to maintain the functionality and performance of the SoC, but also makes the operation of the DVFS scheme more efficient and accurate in SoC design.

Download Full-text

Ship Handling in Unprotected Waters: A Review of New Technologies in Escort Tugs to Improve Safety

Applied Mechanics ◽

10.3390/applmech2010004 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 46-62

Author(s):

Santiago Iglesias-Baniela ◽

Juan Vinagre-Ríos ◽

José M. Pérez-Canosa

Keyword(s):

High Performance ◽

New Technologies ◽

Weather Conditions ◽

Hull Form ◽

Best Available Technologies ◽

Adverse Weather Conditions ◽

Adverse Weather ◽

New Type ◽

Technological Challenge ◽

And Performance

It is a well-known fact that the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster caused the escort towing of laden tankers in many coastal areas of the world to become compulsory. In order to implement a new type of escort towing, specially designed to be employed in very adverse weather conditions, considerable changes in the hull form of escort tugs had to be made to improve their stability and performance. Since traditional winch and ropes technologies were only effective in calm waters, tugs had to be fitted with new devices. These improvements allowed the remodeled tugs to counterbalance the strong forces generated by the maneuvers in open waters. The aim of this paper is to perform a comprehensive literature review of the new high-performance automatic dynamic winches. Furthermore, a thorough analysis of the best available technologies regarding towline, essential to properly exploit the new winches, will be carried out. Through this review, the way in which the escort towing industry has faced this technological challenge is shown.

Download Full-text

HPC Cloud Architecture to Reduce HPC Workflow Complexity in Containerized Environments

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app11030923 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (3) ◽

pp. 923

Author(s):

Guohua Li ◽

Joon Woo ◽

Sang Boem Lim

Keyword(s):

High Performance ◽

Cloud Services ◽

Workload Management ◽

Job Management ◽

Security Issues ◽

Cloud Architecture ◽

Management Efficiency ◽

Complexity Problem ◽

And Performance ◽

Hpc Cloud

The complexity of high-performance computing (HPC) workflows is an important issue in the provision of HPC cloud services in most national supercomputing centers. This complexity problem is especially critical because it affects HPC resource scalability, management efficiency, and convenience of use. To solve this problem, while exploiting the advantage of bare-metal-level high performance, container-based cloud solutions have been developed. However, various problems still exist, such as an isolated environment between HPC and the cloud, security issues, and workload management issues. We propose an architecture that reduces this complexity by using Docker and Singularity, which are the container platforms most often used in the HPC cloud field. This HPC cloud architecture integrates both image management and job management, which are the two main elements of HPC cloud workflows. To evaluate the serviceability and performance of the proposed architecture, we developed and implemented a platform in an HPC cluster experiment. Experimental results indicated that the proposed HPC cloud architecture can reduce complexity to provide supercomputing resource scalability, high performance, user convenience, various HPC applications, and management efficiency.

Download Full-text