Search results for "Strategic"

Backlash against the procedural consensus

2020

While the politics of backlash is typically described as a reaction to policy decisions in favour of minority rights, immigration or globalisation, this essay focuses on the fact that backlash typically also involves a reaction against the procedural consensus liberal democracy is based upon. This challenge to democratic procedures and institutions may be even more dangerous in its effects than the substantial objectives of backlash. I use the composite definition of backlash suggested by Alter and Zürn to assess in how far the attacks on the institutions of liberal democracy have retrograde objectives in themselves or in how far they are merely instrumental to the pursuit of other retrogr…

The “Refugee Crisis,” Immigration Attitudes, and Euroscepticism

2019

Between 2015 and 2017, the European Union (EU) was confronted with a major crisis in its history, the so-called “European refugee crisis.” Since the multifaceted crisis has provoked many different responses, it is also likely to have influenced individuals’ assessments of immigrants and European integration. Using data from three waves of the European Social Survey (ESS) — the wave before the crisis in 2012, the wave at the beginning of the crisis in 2014, and the wave right after the (perceived) height of the crisis in 2016 — we test the degree to which the European refugee crisis increased Europeans’ anti-immigrant sentiment and Euroscepticism, as well as the influence of Europeans’ anti-…

Image-Evoked Affect and its Impact on Eeg-Based Biometrics

2019

Electroencephalography (EEG) signals provide a representation of the brain’s activity patterns and have been recently exploited for user identification and authentication due to their uniqueness and their robustness to interception and artificial replication. Nevertheless, such signals are commonly affected by the individual’s emotional state. In this work, we examine the use of images as stimulus for acquiring EEG signals and study whether the use of images that evoke similar emotional responses leads to higher identification accuracy compared to images that evoke different emotional responses. Results show that identification accuracy increases when the system is trained with EEG recordin…

ES1D: A Deep Network for EEG-Based Subject Identification

2017

Security systems are starting to meet new technologies and new machine learning techniques, and a variety of methods to identify individuals from physiological signals have been developed. In this paper, we present ESID, a deep learning approach to identify subjects from electroencephalogram (EEG) signals captured by using a low cost device. The system consists of a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), which is fed with the power spectral density of different EEG recordings belonging to different individuals. The network is trained for a period of one million iterations, in order to learn features related to local patterns in the spectral domain of the original signal. The performance of the…

2018

Physical fitness is crucial to warfighters' performance in the battlefield. Previous studies have shown negative changes in their hormonal and neuromuscular responses induced by military field training (MFT). The purpose of this study was to investigate the changes in hormonal and immunological values and body composition during a prolonged MFT and to find out how warfighters' physical condition influences these changes. Conscripts (n = 49, age 20 ± 1 years, height 179 ± 9 cm, body mass 73.8 ± 7.8 kg, fat 12.6 ± 3.7% and BMI 23 kg/m²) were measured before, during, after MFT, and after a 4-day recovery period. Serum insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), i…

Towards a Security Competence of Software Developers

2020

Software growth has been explosive as people depend heavily on software on daily basis. Software development is a human-intensive effort, and developers' competence in software security is essential for secure software development. In addition, ubiquitous computing provides an added complexity to software security. Studies have treated security competences of software developers as a subsidiary of security engineers' competence instead of software engineers' competence, limiting the full knowledge of the security competences of software developers. This presents a crucial challenge for developers, educators, and users to maintain developers' competences in security. As a first step in pushi…

Finding Software Bugs in Embedded Devices

2021

AbstractThe goal of this chapter is to introduce the reader to the domain of bug discovery in embedded systems which are at the core of the Internet of Things. Embedded software has a number of particularities which makes it slightly different to general purpose software. In particular, embedded devices are more exposed to software attacks but have lower defense levels and are often left unattended. At the same time, analyzing their security is more difficult because they are very “opaque”, while the execution of custom and embedded software is often entangled with the hardware and peripherals. These differences have an impact on our ability to find software bugs in such systems. This chapt…

From “Mano Dura” to “Enfrentamiento Directo”: swings of public policies in El Salvador

2019

RESUMEN Introduccion: El presente trabajo analiza las cuatro principales politicas publicas de seguridad contra las pandillas en El Salvador: Mano Dura (2003-2004), Super Mano Dura (2004-2009), Tregua entre pandillas (2012-2014) y Enfrentamiento Directo (2014-2019). El objetivo es identificar la influencia de estas politicas sobre la violencia. Materiales y Metodos: Se trata de una investigacion cualitativa apoyada en 12 entrevistas y el relato de vida con las que se explora la responsabilidad gubernamental frente al problema de la violencia en El Salvador. El trabajo de campo se efectuo durante 7 meses, entre septiembre de 2016 y marzo de 2017. El tratamiento de la informacion se efectuo m…

An exploration of digital ride-hailing multisided platforms' market dynamics: empirical evidence from the Uber case study

2020

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to experiment a dynamic performance management (DPM) approach to explore and assess the business dynamics of digital ride-hailing platforms with a focus on both supply and demand sides, and related interplays.Design/methodology/approachThe research adopts the DPM framework supported by simulation-based experimentations for developing a systemic case interpretation of Uber Inc. and its specific business complexity.FindingsThe emerging scenario analysis reveals that changes in the commission percentage for drivers and cutting prices for customers (car hailers) by competitors have significant impacts on the car-hailing industry.Originality/valueDPM and assoc…

People with Disabilities and Disasters

2017

Investigations have collectively established that disasters affect people with disabilities both disproportionately and negatively. In addition, perceived disability status is often associated with stigma, creating a separate and unique barrier across societies and cultures, which can augment vulnerability to disasters. Relevant research is reviewed by academic genesis areas in this chapter, namely; 1) disaster-focused research, 2) mental health, 3) epidemiology and public health, and 4) disability studies. Research emanating from these disciplines reflects different epistemological assumptions about disability as well as varying knowledge about disability as a social and cultural const…