Short CV with incomplete publications
Degrees
- First class honours in Physics, from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne. 1987
- PhD Theoretical Physics, from University of Newcastle Upon Tyne. 1990
- Elected to full professor in computer science, by international committee 2005.
Positions
- Royal Society Post-Doctoral Fellowship 1991/92 University of Oslo, Norway.
- Post-doctoral fellowship of the Norwegian Research Council 1993/94.
- Unix systems consultant, Dept. of physics, 1993/94 University of Oslo.
- Associate professor (Senior Lecturer), University College Oslo, 1994-2005
- Professor, Chair of Networks and Systems, Oslo Univesity College, 2005-2009 (left to start CFEngine Inc)
- CTO and Founder of CFEngine AS, Inc, 2008-2014.
- Founder, Advisor, MemnonTK, working with Fortune 100 companies, 2014-
- Founder of ChiTek-i, 2018-
Awards and Prizes
- Warriner mathematics prize, for best lecture on pure mathematics (geometry).
- Keith Runcorn prize for best PhD thesis in a physics related subject for 1991
(University of Newcastle Upon Tyne)
- Usenix Best paper award 1998, in Large Installation System Administration, for Computer Immunology
- Recognition from Oslo University College for composition of alternative clock chimes for Pilestredet campus 1999
- NATO collaborative research grant 1995-1997
- NATO collaborative research grant 1997-1999
- USENIX 2001 Life-time achievement award. One of many recipients for the GNU project and its contributors. (For Cfengine, volunteer work and the C programming tutorial.)
- The SAGE 2003 Professional Contribution Award: "For groundbreaking work in systems administration theory and individual contributions to the field".
- Winner of the World Class Technology Summit contest, Best Innovation Concept Award, with Siri Fagernes for ``Promise theory -- a model of autonomous objects for pervasive computing and swarms''.
- DSOM2006 Best paper award for ``Predictable Scaling Behaviour in the Data Centre with Multiple Application Servers, (with Gard Undheim), Proceedings of DSOM 2006, LNCS 4269
p49-60 (2006) ''
Books
- Paged ROM programming for the BBC Micro, Dabs Press, 1985.
- C, Dabs Press 1988
- C, (Third Edition) Dabs Press 1992
- C Tutorial (Fourth edition), Free Software Foundation, 2000
- AmigaDOS, Dabs Press 1989
- Classical Covariant Fields, Cambridge University Press, 2002
- Principles of Network and System Administration, J. Wiley \& Sons. 2000
- Selected Papers in Network and System Administration, J. Wiley \& Sons. 2001 (Editor, with E. Anderson and A. Couch.)
- Principles of Network and System Administration (Second edition), J. Wiley \& Sons. 2004
- Analytical Network and System Administration (Human-Computer management), J. Wiley \& Sons. (2004)
- Handbook of Network and System Administration, Elsevier 2007, (Editor with Jan Bergstra)
- An Engineers Guide Host Configuration and Maintenance using Cfengine, Usenix Association 2007. (with \AE leen Frisch)
- Modern Infrastructure Engineering with CFEngine 3
- A Sysadmin's Guide to Navigating the Business World
- In Search of Certainty 2013
- Promise Theory: Principles and Applications (with Jan Bergstra) 2014
- Promise Theory: Case Study on Brexit (with Jan Bergstra) 2014
- Thinking In Promises, 2015
- Smart Spacetime: How Information Challenges our Ideas about Space and Time, 2019
- Promise Theory: Principles and Applications (second edition) 2019
- Money, Ownership, and Agency (with Jan Bergstra) 2019
- A Treatise om Systems (volumes I and II) - TBA
Magazine Articles
- Cfengine: A Network Configuration Tool. 1993.
- The Shape of Programming To come Your Amiga 24-26 June 1988.
- C - Setting Up Your Amiga 14-16 Aug. 1988.
- First Words in C Your Amiga 14-18 Oct 1988.
- Pointing Out Storage Your Amiga 16-19 Dec. 1988.
- First Words in C Your Amiga 24-26 April 1989.
- Evolution Shape and Form Your Amiga 24-26 Apr. 1989.
- The Window to Intuition Your Amiga 18-20 Jun. 1989
- Getting Going ST/Amiga Format (1) 83-84 1988.
- Poetic Gravity. Times Literary Supplement 1990
- Effective Action. University of Oslo report 1992
- Anyon Superconductivity. University of Oslo 1992
- Unix local guide. University of Oslo 1992
- Information revolutions Physics Today November 1996 page 77
- The encyclopaedia of computer science 4th edition, edited by A. Ralston, E. reilly and D. Hemmendinger, Grove's dictionaries (2000) (contribution on Unix)
- Managing filesystem ACLs with GNU/Cfengine. ;login: (23). 3:18-22
- Managing system security with GNU/Cfengine. I ;login: (24) 4:26-28 1999
- Managing system security with GNU/Cfengine. II ;login: (24) 5:20-28 1999
- Managing system security with GNU/Cfengine. III ;login: (24) 6:41-47 1999
- Analytical system administration I ;login: (25) 3:41-46 2000
- Analytical system administration II ;login: (25) 4:50-54 2000
- Analytical system administration III ;login: (25) 5:35-38 2000
- Interview on the meaning of digital,Dagbladet/Magasinet Oct 2000
- In sickeness and in health: the three laws ;login: (25) 8:5-8 (2000)
- A kind of magic ;login: (26) 1:29-32 (2001)
- The myth of computer control ;login: (26) 2:30-36 (2001)
- Entropy: The Good, the Bad and the Aged ;login: (26) 3:24-31 (2001)
- In Search of Cleopatra's Needles ;login: (26) 4:10-18 (2001)
- Clusters and Parallels: ecologies (unpublished)
- Diagnosis - the projection of LISA to come? ;login: (26) 6:35-46 (2001)
- Christmas Carol ;login: (26) 8:5-13 (2001)
- Rule-based cluster management with GNU cfengine Newsletter of the IEEE Taskforce on Cluster Computing: 4(1), (2002)
- Talking to the walls ;login: (2004)
- Cabbage Patch KISS. ;login: 2007;31(4):15-21
- Bable, Babble, toil and grammar.;login: 2007;31(5):18-25
- A Shocking Lack of Ad-hocracy. ;login: 2007;31(6)
- There's no I/O without U: Economic Networking. ;login: 2007;32(1)
- Promises, Promises (an interview with Mark Burgess). ;login: 2007;32(2)
Chapters in books
- Preface to Handbook of Network and System Adminisration, Elsevier 2007, (Editor with Jan Bergstra)
- Scaling Data Centre Services, in Handbook of Network and System Adminisration, Elsevier 2007, (Editor with Jan Bergstra)
- On the Complexity of Change and Configuration Management (with Lars Kristiansen), in Handbook of Network and System Adminisration, Elsevier 2007, (Editor with Jan Bergstra)
- System Administration and the Scientific Method, in Handbook of Network and System Adminisration, Elsevier 2007, (Editor with Jan Bergstra)
- System Administration and Micro-Economic Modelling, in Handbook of Network and System Adminisration, Elsevier 2007, (Editor with Jan Bergstra)
Computer science papers
- Cfengine: a site configuration engine, USENIX Computing systems, Vol8, No. 3 1995
- Strategies for Distributed resource Administration Using Cfengine, Software-Practice and Experience 27, 1083 (1997).
- Object orientation and visualization of physics in two dimensions Computers in physics Vol12, Issue 3, p.274 1998. With H. Haugerud and A. Strandlie
- Adaptive locks for frequently scheduled tasks with unpredictable run-times, Proceedings of the 11th system administration conference (USENIX/LISA) October 1997
- Automated system administration with feedback regulation, Software-Practice and Experience 28, 1519 (1998).
- Computer Immunology, Proceedings of the 12th system administration conference (USENIX/LISA) 1998
- Cfengine as a component of computer immune-systems. Proceedings of the Norwegian Informatics Conference 1998
- Measuring system normality I,1999, rewritten 2002 for ACM/TOCS(with H. Haugerud and S. Straumsnes)
- Measuring system normality II,1999, rewritten 2002 for ACM/TOCS (with T. Reitan S. Straumsnes)
- Evaluating cfengine's immunity model of site maintenance, Proceedings of the SANE 2000 conference.
- On the theory of system administration. Science of Computer Programming 49, 2003. p1-46
- Theoretical system administration. Proceedings of the 14th USENIX/LISA 2000
- Predictable configuration management in a randomized scheduling framework, Proceedings of the IFIP/IEEE DSOM2001 Conference, with F. Sandnes
- Recent developments in cfengine. Proceedings of the 2nd Unix.nl conference, Netherlands 2001
- System administration as communication over a noisy channel, Proceedings of the SANE 2002 conference (NLUUG 2002).
- Security and online evaluation with large classes, HIO Internal Report 2002
- Measuring system normality, ACM Transactions on Computing Systems 20, p.125-160 (2002)(with H. Haugerud and S. Straumsnes and T. Reitan)
- Two dimensional time-series for anomaly detection and regulation in adaptive systems, in Proceedings of 13th IFIP/IEEE International Workshop on Distributed System, operations and management (DSOM 2002). "Management Technologies for E-Commerce and E-Business Applications" Springer 2002.
- Scalability of peer configuration management in partially
reliable and ad hoc networks(with G. Canright), Proceedings of IEEE/IFIP
IM2003 conference on Integrated Network Management
- A scaled, immunological approach to anomaly countermeasures (Combining pH with cfengine)(with K. Begnum), Proceedings of IEEE/IFIP
IM2003 conference on Integrated Network Management
- Experiences with peer-review evaluation in computer science
courses(with F. Sandnes) ICEE conference proceedings 2002
- Procedural Security and Quality Assurance in Learning and Examinations, HIO Internal
report 2002
- A Graphical Model of Computer Security (From Access Control to Social Engineering) with Geoffrey Canright, in International Journal of Information Security (IJIS), vol 3, 70-85 (2004).
- Configurable immunity for evolving human-computer systems, Science of Computer Programming, Volume 51, Issue 3 , June 2004, Pages 197-213
- Archipelago: A Network Security Analysis Tool(With T. Stang et al.) Proceedings of LISA 2003. p 153
- A Network Security Analysis Tool (With T. Stang et al.) Proceedings of NIK 2003.
- Importance functions for directed graphs, 2004, (with G. Canright and K. Eng\o-Monsen) - resubmitted to Journal of Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery as ``Mining Topological Importance From The Eigenvectors Of Directed Graphs'' in 2007.
- Probabilistic anomaly detection in distributed computer networks, Submitted to Science of Computer Programming.
- Principal components and importance ranking of distributed anomalies. (with K. Begnum), Machine Learning Journal, {\bf 58}, 217-230, (2005).
- Pervasive Computer Management I: A Model of Network Policy with Local Autonomy (with S. Fagernes - submitted to IEEE TSE)
- Pervasive Computer Management II: Voluntary Cooperation (with S. Fagernes - in preparation)
- Pervasive Computer Management III: Equilibration of human-computer policies (with S. Fagernes - in preparation)
- Autonomic infrastructure in a virtual grid landscape from abstract roles (with K. Begnum and J. Sechrest - unpublished)
- Scalability of peer configuration management in logically ad hoc networks (with G. Canright)
- Scaling behaviour of peer configuration management in logically ad hoc
networks (with G. Canright), IEEE eTransactions on Network and Service
Management vol 1(1) 2004 (no page numbers).
- A risk analysis of disk backup or repository maintenance. Science of Computer Programming 2007;64:312-331 (with Trond Reitan)
- An Approach to Understanding Policy Based on Autonomy and Voluntary Cooperation, submitted to IFIP/IEEE 16th international workshop on distributed systems operations and management (DSOM).
- Voluntary cooperation in a pervasive computing environment, Proceedings of LISA 2005
- On the Stability of Adaptive Service Level Agreements, (with
Kyrre Begnum, Tore M. Jonassen and Siri Fagernes),
IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management ( Volume: 3, Issue: 1, Jan. 2006)
- Summary of Stability of Adaptive Service Level Agreements, (with
Kyrre Begnum, Tore M. Jonassen and Siri Fagernes), in the IEEE Proceedings of the International Policy Workshop 2005.
- Modelling Next Generation Configuration Management Tools, LISA 2006.
- Autonomic Computing Approximated by Fixed-Point Promises, MACE Workshop, Manweek 2006
- Autonomic Pervasive Computing: A Smart Mall Scenario Using Promise Theory, MACE Workshop, Manweek 2006
- Predictable Scaling Behaviour in the Data Centre with Multiple Application Servers, (with Gard Undheim), Proceedings of DSOM 2006, LNCS 4269 p49-60 (2006)
- Uncertainty in Global Application Services with Load Sharing Policy, (with Sven I. Ulland), Proceedings of DSOM 2006, LNCS 4269 p37-48 (2006)
- Network Patterns in Cfengine and Scalable Data Aggregation, with Matt Disney and Rolf Stadler
- On the Reliability of Service Level Estimators in the Data Centre, (with Jon Henrik Bj\o rnstad), Proceedings of IM 2007, IEEE Press.
- Promise theory -- a model of autonomous objects for pervasive computing and swarms, (with Siri Fagenes), Proceedings of the World Class Technology Summit Contest, 2006. (Winner of best paper)
- A Promise Theory View on the Policies of Object Orientation and Service Oriented Architecture (with D. Aredo and S. Hagen)
- Voluntary Economic Cooperation in Policy Based Management, submitted to IEEE TSE 2006.
- Adaptive provisioning using virtual machines and autonomous role-based management,
(with K Begnum and J. Sechrest), Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Autonomic and Autonomous Systems (ICAS'06) (2006).
- A Promise Theory Approach to Collaborative Power Reduction in a Pervasive Computing Environment, (with F. Sandnes), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4159 p615-624 (2006).
- Norms and Swarms, Lecture Notes on Computer Science 4543 (Proceedings of the first International Conference on Autonomous Infrastructure and Security (AIMS)) p. 107-118 (with Siri Fagernes)
- Validating the Promise Theory Syntax using Rewriting Logic
Lecture Notes on Computer Science 4543 (Proceedings of the first International Conference on Autonomous Infrastructure and Security (AIMS)) p. 203-206 (with Kyrre Begnum)
- Improving Anomaly Detection Event Analysis Using the EventRank Algorithm,
Lecture Notes on Computer Science 4543 (Proceedings of the first International Conference on Autonomous Infrastructure and Security (AIMS)) p. 143-154 (with Kyrre Begnum)
- A Process Algebra based Framework for Promise Theory, Technical Report University
of Amsterdam, 2007 (with Jan Bergstra and Inge Bethke)
- On the consistency of distributed knowledge. I: Modelling Autonomic Computing Environments, 2nd IEEE International Workshop, MACE 2007. Berlin: Multicon verlag 2007. ISBN 3-930736-09-8. s. 145-154
- Laws of Human-Computer Behaviour and Collective Organization (2006) Unpublished (with Siri Fagernes)
- Laws of Systemic Organization and Collective behaviour in Ensembles. I: Modelling Autonomic Computing Environments, 2nd IEEE International Workshop, MACE 2007. Berlin: Multicon verlag 2007. ISBN 3-930736-09-8. s. 115-130 (with S. Fagernes)
- Fault Detection in Autonomic Networks using the Concept of Promises. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2007;4785:62-73 (with R. Badonnel)
- Dynamic pull-based load balancing for autonomic servers, Network Operations and Management Symposium, 2008. NOMS 2008. IEEE
- Service Load Balancing with Autonomic Servers: Reversing the Decision Making Process, in Resilient Networks and Services, Volume 5127 of the series Lecture Notes in Computer Science pp 92-104 (with Remi Badonnel)
- On system rollback and totalised fields: An algebraic approach to system change, Journal of Logic and Algebraic Programming 80 (2011), pp. 427-443
DOI information: 10.1016/j.jlap.2011.07.001
- What's wrong with knowledge management? And the emergence of ontology, chapter in New Research on Knowledge Management Models and Methods, InTech 2012, ISBN 979-953-307-226-4
- A Promise Theory Perspective on Data Networks, arXiv:1405.2627 [cs.NI] (2014) (Paul Borril, Mark Burgess, Todd Craw, Mike Dvorkin)
- Spacetimes with semantics (i). http://arxiv.org/abs/1411.5563, (2014).
- Spacetimes with semantics (ii). http://arxiv.org/abs/1505.01716, (2015).
- Spacetimes with semantics (iii). http://arxiv.org/abs/1608.02193, (2016).
- On the scaling of functional spaces, from smart cities to cloud computing http://arxiv.org/abs/1602.06091 (2016)
- A Spacetime Approach to Generalized Cognitive Reasoning in Multi-scale Learning (2017)
- Spacetime-Entangled Networks (I) Relativity and Observability of Stepwise Consensus, Paul Borrill, Mark Burgess, Alan Karp, Atsushi Kasuya (2018)
- Locality, Statefulness, and Causality in Distributed Information Systems (Concerning the Scale Dependence Of System Promises) 2019
- From Observability to Significance in Distributed Information Systems
- Koalja: from Data Plumbing to Smart Workspaces in the Extended Cloud
- After The BlockCloud Apocalypse (NSPW18) (humour)
Multi-disciplinary (computing, physics, sociology)
- A Promise Theoretic Account of the Boeing 737 Max MCAS Algorithm Affair (with J.A. Bergstra)
- Candidate Software Process Flaws for the Boeing 737 Max MCAS Algorithm and Risks for a Proposed Upgrade (with J.A. Bergstra)
- Information and Causality in Promise Theory
- Promise Theory and the Alignment of Context, Processes, Types, and Transforms Transmathematica 2021
- The Semantic Spacetime Hypothesis A Guide to the Semantic Spacetime Project Work
- Testing the Quantitative Spacetime Hypothesis using Artificial Narrative Comprehension (I) : Bootstrapping Meaning from Episodic Narrative viewed as a Feature Landscape
- Testing the Quantitative Spacetime Hypothesis using Artificial Narrative Comprehension (II) : Establishing the Geometry of Invariant Concepts, Themes, and Namespaces
- Authority (I): A Promise Theoretic Formalization (also at SocArxiv) (2021)
- Virtual motion (Motion of the Third Kind) (2021)
Physics papers
- Classical Description of the Faraday Effect. 1986. Unpublished notes.. (1985)
- Kaluza-Klein Theory. Dissertation 1987.
- Gauge Vacua on Multiply Connected Spacetimes. Doctoral thesis 1990.
- One Loop Breaking By Massive Fields, Physics Letters B234: 97 (1990) with David Toms. 7 printed pages (pp).
- Vacuum Structure of Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons Theory in 3D, Physical Review Letters 64: 1639 (1990) with David Toms. 3 pp.
- Two-Loop Instabilities of Gauge Vacua and Topological Symmetry Breaking on $R^n \times S^1$, Annals of Physics 210: 438 (1991) with David Toms. 31 pp.
- Fractional Statistics and the Dynamical Gauge Symmetry of Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons Theory, Physics Letters B252: 596 (1990) with David Toms. 4 pp.
- Gauge Vacua in Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons Theory on Tori and Projective spaces, Physical Review D43: 1956 (1991) with Alan McLachlan and David Toms. 9 pp.
- Radiatively Induced Chern-Simons terms on the Torus, Physical Review D44: 2552 (1991). 6 pp.
- Dynamics Of Magnetic Fields in Maxwell, Yang-Mills and Chern-Simons theories on the Torus, Int. J. Mod. Phys. A8: 2623 (1993). 58 pp.
- Is there a phase transition in Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory? Phys. Rev. D48: 1808 (1993) with D.J. Toms and N. Tveten
- Fermions near two dimensional surfaces, Phys. Rev. A48:1861 (1993) with B. Jensen
- Classical optics in Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory, Phys. Rev. B48: 12912 (1993) with J.M. Leinaas and O. L\o vvik.
- Gauge Invariance and Disequilibrium in Chern-Simons Theory, Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Thermal Fields and their Applications, Alberta, Canada. 1993
- Chern-Simons Diffusion Layers: Short wavelength behaviour determined by gauge invariance. Phys. Rev. Lett 72 2823 (1994)
- Renormalization and the action principle. Int. J. Mod. Phys. A11, no. 19 1996. p. 3549
- Boundaries and junctions in two parity violating models in (2+1) dimensions. Phys. Rev. B52, 5052-5062, 1995
- Chern-Simons vortices in an open system. Phys. Rev. D52, 1165-1168, 1995.
- Quantum fields in disequilibrium: neutral scalar bosons with long-range
inhomogeneous perturbations. Phys. Rev D52 7103-7120, 1995 (No. 12)
- Squeezed inhomogeneities in a quantum field. Phys. Rev. D55, 951 (1997)
- Simulating physics in two dimensions, with H. Haugerud and A. Strandlie, Computers
in physics 12, no.3., 274 1998
- The effective action for a generalized Jaynes-Cummings model, Can. J. Phys. 76, 539 1998
- Effective field theory of resonant 2-level atoms (unpublished).
- Effective field theories of non-equilibrium physics, Proceedings of the 5th Workshopon Thermal Fields.
- Non-equilibrium action principles for quasi-fields, Invited contribution to special edition of Condensed Matter Physics (2000) Vol (3), No. 1(21) pp. 35-50
- Thermal, non-equilibrium phase space for networked computers, Phys. Rev. E (2000)62:1738
- The kinematics of distributed computing, Int. J. Mod Phys. C12 759-789 (2001)
- Covariant approach to equilibration in effective field theories, Can. J. Phys. 80(2) 97-107 (2002), with M. Carrington and G. Kunstatter
Patents
(255033US) (``T-rank 3''), A Method, System and Computer Program Product for Ranking Documents Using Link Analysis, Without Sinks, with G. Canright and K. Engø-Monsen.