Advances in information technology, and its use in research, are increasing both the need for anonymized data and the risks of poor anonymization. In this thesis, we point out some questions raised by current anonymization techniques such as (a) support for additional adversary models and the...

In this information age, data and knowledge extracted by data mining techniques represent a key asset driving research, innovation, and policy-making activities. Many agencies and organizations have recognized the need of accelerating such trends and are therefore willing to release the data...

This dissertation investigates the problem of developing models and mechanisms for user authorization based on uncertain evidence and dynamic trust. The research directions are modeling dynamic trust, modeling uncertain evidence, and integrating them with role assignment for user authorization....

Resource allocation is one of the most widely addressed topics in computer science. Its importance lies with the role it has in providing a foundation for building systems and applications, and with its focus on using the resources available in the environment in an efficient way. While,...

In recent years leading-edge financial institutions routinely use advanced analytical and numerical techniques from science and engineering to create, deploy, and manage new financial instruments. The proliferation and complexity of the available financial instruments in conjunction with the...

This research explores the economic rationale behind the increasing use of software rentals in the software industry in North America. The first part uses a two period game theoretic model to analyze a monopoly's pricing strategy. The monopoly produces two versions of the software, one in each...

Current proposals for access control languages cannot specify policies required by specific application scenarios (e.g. a database system to enforce privacy regulations), may also contain design flaws, and are incompatible. In this dissertation, we extend RBAC with new components to meet...

With the advancement of computer aided design (CAD) tools, designed products are increasingly more sophisticated, making product assemblies more difficult to be visualized and understood. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a novel approach at interacting with CAD assembly models -...

We first review the concepts fundamental to the statistical inference procedures using nonparametric regression models. The global error properties of an estimator over its parameter space are employed to define a general framework that puts various existing optimality criteria and heuristics...

Gaussian mixture models have been used extensively in model-based clustering. It is well known that the likelihood function for this model is unbounded and the global MLE does not exist. Existing methods confine the parameter estimates in the interior of the parameter space and the MLE is shown...