Events
Financial Engineering: A New Academic Field
Monmouth County ACM
presents
Financial Engineering: A New Academic Field
by B. Byrne
Abstract
Financial Engineering (or Computational Finance) is a cross-disciplinary field relying on mathematical finance, numerical methods and computer simulations to make trading, hedging and investment decisions, as well as facilitating the risk management of those decisions.
Although the origins of financial engineering can be traced to Bachelier in the early 20th century, the discovery of the option pricing formula in 1973 created widespread interest in the field.
Since the 1990s, financial institutions have been investing in Financial Engineering, creating a need for people with the proper skill set. Also, many hedge funds have been created which rely heavily on these skills. As a consequence, universities, including Monmouth University starting in 2009, are offering degree programs in Financial Engineering.
This talk will be an overview of this new academic field.
About the Speaker
B. Byrne has spent the past 10 years working in the financial industry, and is an adjunct professor of computer science at Monmouth University.
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS:
MS Thesis Defense: Tarik Guelzim
Title: Security Enhancement Schemes for Wireless
Networks
- Exam Date: Wednesday, July 9, 2008
- Time: 9:30 a.m.
- Place: Howard Hall C1
- MS Candidate: Mr. Tarik Guelzim
Thesis committee:
- Dr. Mohammad S. Obaidat: Thesis Advisor
- Dr. Richard Clayton
- Dr. Joseph Chung
Abstract
The IEEE 802.11 standard is becoming the most popular and efficient network topology deployed today. Providing and ensuring the security of wireless network is essential part to its continuous growth. Goals such as confidentiality and trust imply that every data transmitted by each user stays known only to the communicating parties. Authorization of users is also a very important aspect of network integrity. There exist mechanisms defined by the Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) protocol that enable such functionality; however, recent attacks on such system showed that these mechanisms can be defied. In this thesis, we propose two new security schemes. The first employs a neural network decision engine that restricts network access to mobile nodes whose physical location is within a threshold distance from the wireless access point or the controller of the network. This method gives an extra layer of security and allows enforcing policies by which network access is only allowed from a certain section of the network. The second tackles the disassociation packet security flaw by which a malicious attacker can disconnect all network users by injecting two or more false management frames into the network. Our scheme proposes the use of digital signatures as a mean to ensure the authenticity, integrity and validity of these frames.
Performance evaluation results have shown that our Neural Network scheme has a 95% accuracy rate which is higher than existing schemes in this field. In addition, evaluation of the CDM scheme showed that a higher security enhancement is feasible without introducing a big overhead by using MD5-RSA as the digital signature algorithm.
MS Thesis Defense: Mukund Sundararajan
Title: Enhancements to the SOCKS network security
protocol
- Exam Date: Monday, July 7, 2008
- Time: 9:30 a.m.
- Place: Howard Hall C1
- MS Candidate: Mr. Mukund Sundararajan
Thesis committee:
- Dr. Mohammad S. Obaidat: Thesis Advisor
- Dr. Charles Pack
- Dr. Joseph Chung
Abstract
This thesis is the result of work done on extending the capabilities of the SOCKS protocol. SOCKS is an application layer network security protocol deployed in firewalls, standardized in Request For Comments (RFC) 1928 by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as SOCKS Version 5.
There are two proposed extensions to the SOCKS protocol made and implemented in this thesis. The first extension is the addition of multicast capabilities to the SOCKS protocol. The current standard of the protocol does not support multicasting and is suitable only for securing unicast TCP and UDP based applications. Multicast sessions are typically blocked by network firewalls protecting enterprise networks because of the nature of IP multicast and the security threats associated with such sessions. In such networks, the goals for adding multicast capabilities in the SOCKS protocol are to stream multicast sessions through the network boundaries in a secure and controlled fashion, hiding internal multicast sessions from being visible outside the network and preventing unwanted multicast sessions from the Internet from being relayed into the network.
The second proposed extension is UDP tunneling intended for networks where UDP datagrams are blocked by firewalls for security reasons. UDP tunneling can be used to establish a trusted channel for forwarding UDP datagrams via a TCP or TLS tunnel from application nodes on one network to application nodes on another network through an insecure network like the Internet. Each network will have a firewall running the new SOCKS protocol. Socks clients on one network can request the SOCKS server to transport UDP datagrams to an application or end point on the other network. The SOCKS server at the originating end, upon receipt of this request, will act as a client to the SOCKS server on the destination network. After exchanging SOCKS protocol messages, the two SOCKS servers will open a tunnel for transporting UDP datagrams across the two networks.
The proposed extensions to the SOCKS protocol are prototyped in a reference implementation. Performance evaluation has been conducted in a simulated test environment in order to evaluate the new schemes using the throughput, response time and packet delay as performance metrics. The obtained results have shown that the new schemes perform well under heavy load and do not impact the overall performance of the SOCKS server. Moreover, the results are very close to the results that were obtained by running the same tests without the use of the SOCKS server in a non-firewall environment proving that the overhead added by the new schemes in the SOCKS server is minimal and acceptable.
2/25/08 - Talk:
Working in the 21st Century Workplace -
Surviving & Thriving - A Few Tips
IEEE Monmouth University Student Branch (Software Engineering)
IEEE NJ Coast Section Signal Processing/Circuits and System Chapter
present
Working in the 21st Century Workplace
Surviving & Thriving - A Few Tips
By Bala Prasanna
Abstract
Workplace habits and expectations have changed significantly in the last few years. Surviving and thriving depends on your ability to grasp the broader picture and adopt while being aware and honing some essential skills. Topics of discussion include – handling around-the-clock job; setting aside think-place/think-time regularly, training a back-up; playground vs. battleground attitude/aptitude; finding & developing sweet spot of issues for resolution; managing your boss (Yes!), managing relationships (creating your angels), think as a manager; become aware of business control requirements of your employer ("I am just technical, don't bother me with bureaucratic processes" will not cut any more), metrics imperatives of modern businesses; handling personal vs. professional attitudes/opinions; some habits of successful people; talents vs. skills (recognize & use your talents (it is a gift you have), skills – train to acquire necessary skills; productivity – tracking and yearly increments(like it or not!), customer/vendor relationships; seeing or seeking comfort in spiritual or philosophical terms.
About the Speaker
Bala Prasanna joined IBM-International Business Machines Corporation in May 2005 as a technical/people manager. Mr. Prasanna began his career as an assistant professor in SUNY-State University of New York-Oswego in Computer Science department. He worked at AT&T-Bell Labs for over 20 years as member of technical staff, principal member of technical staff & technical/people manager. Mr. Prasanna is currently involved in building software systems working with on-shore and offshore teams. As a manager, he is active in many employee counseling and support organizations.
CONTACT:
Terry Powers 732-571-7501 tpowers@monmouth.edu
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