8,781 research outputs found

    HIV and AIDS in Greater Manchester: service delivery in times of devolution, neoliberalism and austerity

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    This research examines the impact of devolution, neoliberalism and austerity on the governance and delivery of specialist HIV and AIDS physical and mental health services for service users across the Manchester City Region. This research further documents the decline of specialist HIV and AIDS healthcare, including mental health services, over the last decade and details the extent of these changes on people living with HIV and AIDS across the Manchester City Region. Focusing on the interplay of neoliberal policy interventions with the structural changes implied in devolution, the research locates the participants' accounts within the broader analysis of cultural, political and economic developments in health policy and (urban) governance. This thesis draws on a queer-feminist methodology and a series of semi-structured interviews with service users of HIV and AIDS healthcare provisions; organisations specialising in HIV and AIDS support, advice and advocacy services to improve health outcomes; healthcare staff specialising in HIV and AIDS healthcare and those who advocate for improved treatments; academics who work in the field of HIV studies; and activists who are campaigning for improved HIV and AIDS services. The interview data was analysed to show how funding changes have affected the delivery of HIV and AIDS healthcare services. Secondary data sources, such as public health data, were also utilised to address gaps within the interview data. The interview data shows that the shift to cheaper generalist services results in poorer service provision because healthcare staff may not understand the full range of needs of service users with HIV and AIDS. Moreover, the study participants pointed to the persistence of discrimination in healthcare settings, leading to poorer mental health. As a result, service users may stop taking their antiretroviral treatments. Historically, HIV has been heavily stigmatised, and this is a theme which arose in the data. This study focuses on specific campaigns, such as “U=U” and “You Can’t Pass It On,” which attempt to combat HIV-associated stigma and discrimination by creating awareness. Still, the efforts of these campaigns have only tended to reach those who know about HIV. In response, there has been some work in Manchester to educate healthcare professionals, but this is limited and still in its infancy. This study further argues that there is an urgent need for increased investment in specialist HIV and AIDS healthcare services. There needs to be a refocus on providing services across the Manchester City Region. Furthermore, the research data analysis suggests that even more funding may be required to achieve the goal of advanced specialist training among health professionals to secure adequate healthcare provisions for people living with HIV and AIDS within the Greater Manchester City Region

    Intelligent Match Merging to Prevent Obfuscation Attacks on Software Plagiarism Detectors

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    Aufgrund der steigenden Anzahl der Informatikstudierenden verlassen sich Dozenten auf aktuelle Werkzeuge zur Erkennung von Quelltextplagiaten, um zu verhindern, dass Studierende plagiierte Programmieraufgaben einreichen. WĂ€hrend diese auf Token basierenden Plagiatsdetektoren inhĂ€rent resilient gegen einfache Verschleierungen sind, ermöglichen kĂŒrzlich veröffentlichte Verschleierungswerkzeuge den Studierenden, ihre Abgaben mĂŒhelos zu Ă€ndern, um die Erkennung zu umgehen. Der Vormarsch von ChatGPT hat zusĂ€tzliche Bedenken hinsichtlich seiner VerschleierungsfĂ€higkeiten und der Notwendigkeit wirksamer Gegenstrategien aufgeworfen. Bestehende Verteidigungsmechanismen gegen Verschleierung sind oft durch ihre SpezifitĂ€t fĂŒr bestimmte Angriffe oder ihre AbhĂ€ngigkeit von Programmiersprachen begrenzt, was eine mĂŒhsame und fehleranfĂ€llige Neuimplementierung erfordert. Als Antwort auf diese Herausforderung fĂŒhrt diese Arbeit einen neuartigen Verteidigungsmechanismus gegen automatische Verschleierungsangriffe namens Match-ZusammenfĂŒhrung ein. Er macht sich die Tatsache zunutze, dass Verschleierungsangriffe die Token-Sequenz Ă€ndern, um Übereinstimmungen zwischen zwei Abgaben aufzuspalten, sodass die gebrochenen Übereinstimmungen vom Plagiatsdetektor verworfen werden. Match-ZusammenfĂŒhrung macht die Auswirkungen dieser Angriffe rĂŒckgĂ€ngig, indem benachbarte Übereinstimmungen auf der Grundlage einer Heuristik intelligent zusammengefĂŒhrt werden, um falsch positive Ergebnisse zu minimieren. Die WiderstandsfĂ€higkeit unserer Methode gegen klassische Verschleierungsangriffe wird durch Evaluationen anhand verschiedener realer DatensĂ€tze, einschließlich Studienarbeiten und Programmierwettbewerbe, in sechs verschiedenen Angriffsszenarien demonstriert. DarĂŒber hinaus verbessert sie die Erkennungsleistung gegen KI-basierte Verschleierung signifikant. Was diesen Mechanismus auszeichnet, ist seine UnabhĂ€ngigkeit von Sprache und Angriff, wĂ€hrend sein minimaler Laufzeit-Aufwand ihn nahtlos mit anderen Verteidigungsmechanismen kompatibel macht

    Rethinking Grand Strategy for an Era of Climate Change

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    The strategic security environment has changed drastically over the last decade, with the passing of the American unipolar moment leading to the beginnings of a new era of strategic inter-state competition. However, unlike past eras of competition, this iteration will see states compete within an increasingly destabilized climate system because of climate change. This thesis explores how the impacts of climate change will shape the upcoming era of competition, focusing on its effects on grand strategy, given the latter’s important role as a ‘bridge’ that links the means and ways of a state to its ends. In particular, the central question addressed by this thesis is as follows: Do the observed global environmental changes because of climate change necessitate the broadening of the geographic understanding of grand strategy? This thesis argues that climate change has and will continue to impact the conduct of strategy in the future. It also argues that climate change must be explicitly incorporated into modern understandings of grand strategy given its ability to undermine the economic underpinnings of states that enable the pursuit of their goals in a feasible and sustainable manner. In making this argument, this thesis develops a conceptual framework linking climate change through to the implementation of grand strategy, using the case of the 2022 Pakistani floods as a demonstrative case study to show how climate change can generate significant impacts on the grand strategies of states

    Jordan and the Refugee Crisis: Impact on the Host Nation

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    This thesis investigated the effect of refugee populations of the culture and society of Jordan with emphasis placed on Jordanian social acceptance of refugee populations as measured through intermarriage. Data was collected quantitatively from 100 female respondents at each of three Jordanian universities regarding values and acceptance of refugee populations as potential spouses using a simple survey. Data was also collected qualitatively by semi-structured interviews with select individuals to provide context. Universities were geographically diverse to allow observation of regional disparities in response. Whitney Mann U test was used to compare significance of answers across universities. Survey data showed that Jordanian acceptance of refugees through intermarriage was low unless they had Jordanian citizenship. There were also indicators that wealth may play a greater role in acceptance than ethnic origin or traditions. I found while societal acceptance of refugees may be growing, especially in the urban areas, governmental restrictions on citizenship, while understandable on the pragmatic level, will continue to create a hurdle for integration. Other factors that affect integration of refugees in Jordan are also discussed

    DeVoS: Deniable Yet Verifiable Vote Updating

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    peer reviewedInternet voting systems are supposed to meet the same high standards as traditional paper-based systems when used in real political elections: freedom of choice, universal and equal suffrage, secrecy of the ballot, and independent verifiability of the election result. Although numerous Internet voting systems have been proposed to achieve these challenging goals simultaneously, few come close in reality. We propose a novel publicly verifiable and practically efficient Internet voting system, DeVoS, that advances the state of the art. The main feature of DeVoS is its ability to protect voters' freedom of choice in several dimensions. First, voters in DeVoS can intuitively update their votes in a way that is deniable to observers but verifiable by the voters; in this way voters can secretly overwrite potentially coerced votes. Second, in addition to (basic) vote privacy, DeVoS also guarantees strong participation privacy by end-to-end hiding which voters have submitted ballots and which have not. Finally, DeVoS is fully compatible with Perfectly Private Audit Trail, a state-of-the-art Internet voting protocol with practical everlasting privacy. In combination, DeVoS offers a new way to secure free Internet elections with strong and long-term privacy properties

    From abuse to trust and back again

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    oai:westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk:w7qv

    The Social Contract: Duty and Discrimination in Public Service

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    What do citizens owe the government? And conversely, what does the government owe its people, particularly those who volunteer for military or public service? The works in this portfolio attempt to answer these questions and delve into the social contract between the American government and its citizens, often through the lens of sexual orientation. Using original correspondence from the Center for War Letters at Chapman University as well as existing works concerning Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the Lavender Scare, the collected essays aim to tell the story of everyday Americans who answered the call to public service only to find indifferent or even hostile treatment by government they sought to serve. Through poor planning or discrimination, the U.S. government routinely violated its oath to its people at key points throughout the nation’s history, but this portfolio demonstrates how dedicated citizens strove to update and improve the social contract in order to produce the more perfect union promised in the nation’s constitution

    Climate Change and Critical Agrarian Studies

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    Climate change is perhaps the greatest threat to humanity today and plays out as a cruel engine of myriad forms of injustice, violence and destruction. The effects of climate change from human-made emissions of greenhouse gases are devastating and accelerating; yet are uncertain and uneven both in terms of geography and socio-economic impacts. Emerging from the dynamics of capitalism since the industrial revolution — as well as industrialisation under state-led socialism — the consequences of climate change are especially profound for the countryside and its inhabitants. The book interrogates the narratives and strategies that frame climate change and examines the institutionalised responses in agrarian settings, highlighting what exclusions and inclusions result. It explores how different people — in relation to class and other co-constituted axes of social difference such as gender, race, ethnicity, age and occupation — are affected by climate change, as well as the climate adaptation and mitigation responses being implemented in rural areas. The book in turn explores how climate change – and the responses to it - affect processes of social differentiation, trajectories of accumulation and in turn agrarian politics. Finally, the book examines what strategies are required to confront climate change, and the underlying political-economic dynamics that cause it, reflecting on what this means for agrarian struggles across the world. The 26 chapters in this volume explore how the relationship between capitalism and climate change plays out in the rural world and, in particular, the way agrarian struggles connect with the huge challenge of climate change. Through a huge variety of case studies alongside more conceptual chapters, the book makes the often-missing connection between climate change and critical agrarian studies. The book argues that making the connection between climate and agrarian justice is crucial
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