Sebastian Fleissner

GPU-Accelerated Montgomery Exponentiation

The computing power and programmability of graphics processing units (GPUs) has been successfully exploited for calculations unrelated to graphics, such as data processing, numerical algorithms, and secret key cryptography. In this paper, a new variant of the Montgomery exponentiation algorithm that exploits the processing power and parallelism of GPUs is designed and implemented. Furthermore, performance tests are conducted and the suitability of the proposed algorithm for accelerating public key encryption is discussed.

WebQuest markup language (WQML) for sharable inquiry-based learning

WebQuest is a model for constructivist inquiry-based learning in which the information used by learners is collected from the Web. A WebQuest exists in form of a Web site that contains a defined set of componential Web pages. In this paper, we specify the WebQuest Markup Language (WQML) for WebQuest construction. WQML enables WebQuests to be implemented as sharable courseware objects and thus to be interoperable with most learning management systems (LMS).

Epi-aspects: aspect-oriented conscientious software

Conscientious software is a recently proposed paradigm for developing reliable, self-sustaining software systems. Conscientious software systems consist of an allopoietic part, which encapsulates application functionality, and an autopoietic part that is responsible for keeping the system alive by monitoring the application and adapting it to environmental changes. Practical application of the conscientious software paradigm requires solutions to two open problems: The design of suitable autopoietic programming languages and the proposal of concrete architectures for combining the autopoietic and allopoietic parts. In this paper, we tackle the second challenge, and propose a concrete, aspect-oriented architecture for realizing conscientious software. Here, we introduce epi-aspects, a construct for upgrading new and existing applications into conscientious software. This paper provides the architectural design of epi-aspects, an autopoietic simulator, and a concrete framework for developing epi-aspects in Java. The framework and the simulator are used to conduct a case study in which we develop and test a conscientious Java application.

The geography of programming

It has been suggested that far-eastern (predominantly Chinese and Japanese) and western reasoning styles differ greatly: Westerners focus on objects, whereas Easterners focus on fields of interaction. 2.Traditional forms of object-orientation seem to follow the western style of thought, in which individual entities are captured cleanly, while interactions between them are not: It has been widely noted that many software systems that involve dynamically interacting components can be complex to design and implement using a strictly object-oriented approach.Eastern reasoning style lends itself better to description of interactions between entities than does the Western style. Hence, we posit that programmers designing systems that involve complex interactions might benefit from a more eastern approach for their design.However, there are currently no eastern-style programming languages of which we are aware. So, we begin our exploration with the work presented in this paper, in which we interview Easterners about how they would describe a typical object-oriented scene, and then attempt to capture and distill their descriptions into the guidelines for a programming paradigm.

A commensalistic software system

The development of reliable software is a challenging task, especially in a business environment that forces developers to focus on meeting tight deadlines instead of producing quality software. Researchers and practitioners are exploring various approaches for addressing this problem, such as autonomic computing and conscientious autopoietic software. These approaches describe software systems that are capable of managing and preserving themselves. In this paper, we propose a new, concrete self-managing software architecture based on the biological concept of commensalistic symbiosis and the notion of autopoietic software. We present a detailed description of our architecture, and a working prototype of a minimal commensalistic system. In addition, we specify a new programming language, examine usage scenarios and discuss implementation issues for realizing a working commensalistic system on a larger scale.

Towards harmony-oriented programming

Object-oriented programming and other programming paradigms are heavily influenced by Western thought and reasoning, which focuses on understanding the world in terms of categories, objects and their attributes: A typical program is decomposed into clearly defined units, such as modules, functions, objects, components and aspects, and each of these units is described by its properties, functionality, and direct relationships to other units. Eastern philosophy, however, focuses on fields of interactions rather than individual units. Harmony-oriented programming is a new programming paradigm based on concepts found in Eastern philosophy. This paper presents principles and constructs of harmony-oriented programming and introduces ongoing work towards creating a harmony-oriented software development environment for further experimental studies.

Single sign-on and key establishment for ubiquitous smart environments

In a smart environment, users often need to access multiple service providers. Multiple authentications and key establishments are required as these resources may reside in different security domains. Therefore we are in quest of a solution that combines multiple logins and key exchanges into one single process. Motivated by this need, we propose a scheme for single sign-on and key establishment (SSOKE) for ubiquitous smart environments. We examine the computational model and design considerations for smart environments, and address them in our scheme construction. Security and privacy considerations of our proposal are also provided.

Harmony-oriented programming and software evolution

Software evolution draws its complexity from a variety of factors, including extensibility, maintainability, and the difficulty of changing a programs design. It is widely accepted that even well-designed object-oriented programs can become brittle as they evolve, because their design has to be fixed at some point, and the more their implementation has progressed, the more difficult it becomes to adjust object interfaces and relationships. We assert that the complexity of software evolution can be reduced by relaxing strong encapsulation and information hiding, and introducing concepts such as continuous information flow. These principles are captured in harmony-oriented programming, a paradigm inspired by concepts of Asian philosophy, such as harmony, resonance, and fields of interactions. This paper illustrates the constructs of harmony-oriented programming and several studies aimed at showing that, in comparison with traditional object-oriented programming, harmony-oriented programming is a more suitable approach for dealing with software evolution effectively.

The culture of programming languages

The theme of this workshop is the proliferation of ideas about calling into question the cultural roots of our current programming languages, and the search for alternative paradigms with other cultural bases.

Harmony-oriented smalltalk

Harmony-oriented programming relaxes encapsulation and information hiding by arranging code snippets in virtual spaces and exchanging data via diffusion. Harmony-Oriented Smalltalk is a visual development environment used in on-going studies to gather evidence that harmony-oriented programs are less prone to brittleness than object-oriented programs in the context of software evolution.