9,629 research outputs found
YIELD TO PEDESTRIANS? EXAMINING INFRASTRUCTURE AND DEFENSIVE-MINDED METHODOLOGIES IN SECURING PEDESTRIAN-RICH ENVIRONMENTS
Urban municipalities feature pedestrian-rich environments with limited mitigation measures to prevent vehicle-caused pedestrian fatalities. Limited pedestrian protections represent an attractive target for nefarious actors to commit vehicle ramming attacks (VRA). There are defensive-minded methodologies that afford greater mitigation against deadly vehicle-versus-pedestrian collisions and VRAs in urban pedestrian-rich environments. This thesis examines the vulnerability of pedestrian-rich environments to vehicle-caused pedestrian fatalities and provide recommendations for stakeholders to better secure the environments. It also examines both the target hardening and protective security methodologies using a theoretical analysis model. By analyzing these defensive-minded methodologies, this thesis explores a homogenous framework for securing urban pedestrian-rich environments: the target hardening/protective security spectrum (THPSS). This thesis concludes with recommendations for urban municipalities to implement to better protect their respective pedestrian-rich environments from deadly vehicle-versus-pedestrian collisions and VRAs. This thesis provides recommendations to better secure outdoor dining establishments, street fairs, road races, and urban public parks from vehicle-caused fatalities.Civilian, New York City Police DepartmentApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited
Victims' Access to Justice in Trinidad and Tobago: An exploratory study of experiences and challenges of accessing criminal justice in a post-colonial society
This thesis investigates victims' access to justice in Trinidad and Tobago, using their own narratives. It seeks to capture how their experiences affected their identities as victims and citizens, alongside their perceptions of legitimacy regarding the criminal justice system. While there have been some reforms in the administration of criminal justice in Trinidad and Tobago, such reforms have not focused on victims' accessibility to the justice system. Using grounded theory methodology, qualitative data was collected through 31 in-depth interviews with victims and victim advocates. The analysis found that victims experienced interpersonal, structural, and systemic barriers at varying levels throughout the criminal justice system, which manifested as institutionalized secondary victimization, silencing and inequality. This thesis argues that such experiences not only served to appropriate conflict but demonstrates that access is often given in a very narrow sense. Furthermore, it shows a failure to encompass access to justice as appropriated conflicts are left to stagnate in the system as there is often very little resolution. Adopting a postcolonial lens to analyse victims' experiences, the analysis identified othering practices that served to institutionalize the vulnerability and powerlessness associated with victim identities. Here, it is argued that these othering practices also affected the rights consciousness of victims, delegitimating their identities as citizens. Moreover, as a result of their experiences, victims had mixed perceptions of the justice system. It is argued that while the system is a legitimate authority victims' endorsement of the system is questionable, therefore victims' experiences suggest that there is a reinforcement of the system's legal hegemony. The findings suggest that within the legal system of Trinidad and Tobago, legacies of colonialism shape the postcolonial present as the psychology and inequalities of the past are present in the interactions and processes of justice. These findings are relevant for policymakers in Trinidad and Tobago and other regions. From this study it is recognized that, to improve access to justice for victims, there needs to be a move towards victim empowerment that promotes resilience and enhances social capital. Going forward it is noted that there is a need for further research
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Credible to Whom? The Organizational Politics of Credibility in International Relations
Why do foreign policy decision makers care about the credibility of their own state’s commitments? How does organizational identity shape policymakers’ concern for credibility, and in turn, their willingness to use force during crises? While much previous research examines how decision makers assess others’ credibility, only recently have scholars questioned when and why leaders or their advisers prioritize their own state’s credibility.
Building on classic scholarship in bureaucratic politics, I argue that organizational identity affects the dimensions of credibility that national security officials value, and ultimately, their policy advocacy around the use of force. Particular differences arise between military and diplomatic organizations; while military officials equate credibility with hard military capabilities, diplomats view credibility in terms of reputation, or demonstrating reliability and resolve to external parties.
During crises, military officials confine their advice on the use of force to what can be achieved given current capabilities, while diplomats exhibit higher willingness to use force as a signal of a strong commitment. I test these propositions using text analysis of archival records from two collections of U.S. national security policy documents, eight case studies of American, British, and French crisis decision making, and an original survey experiment involving more than 400 current or former U.S. national security officials. I demonstrate that credibility concerns affect the balance of hawkishness in advice that diplomats and military officials deliver to leaders as a function of organizational identity
Towards a sociology of conspiracy theories: An investigation into conspiratorial thinking on Dönmes
This thesis investigates the social and political significance of conspiracy theories, which has been an academically neglected topic despite its historical relevance. The academic literature focuses on the methodology, social significance and political impacts of these theories in a secluded manner and lacks empirical analyses. In response, this research provides a comprehensive theoretical framework for conspiracy theories by considering their methodology, political impacts and social significance in the light of empirical data. Theoretically, the thesis uses Adorno's semi-erudition theory along with Girardian approach. It proposes that conspiracy theories are methodologically semi-erudite narratives, i.e. they are biased in favour of a belief and use reason only to prove it. It suggests that conspiracy theories appear in times of power vacuum and provide semi-erudite cognitive maps that relieve alienation and ontological insecurities of people and groups. In so doing, they enforce social control over their audience due to their essentialist, closed-to-interpretation narratives. In order to verify the theory, the study analyses empirically the social and political significance of conspiracy theories about the Dönme community in Turkey. The analysis comprises interviews with conspiracy theorists, conspiracy theory readers and political parties, alongside a frame analysis of the popular conspiracy theory books on Dönmes. These confirm the theoretical framework by showing that the conspiracy theories are fed by the ontological insecurities of Turkish society. Hence, conspiracy theorists, most readers and some political parties respond to their own ontological insecurities and political frustrations through scapegoating Dönmes. Consequently, this work shows that conspiracy theories are important symptoms of society, which, while relieving ontological insecurities, do not provide politically prolific narratives
Finnish nuclear security detection architecture for nuclear and other radioactive material out of regulatory control
The Finnish national CBRNE (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear,
Explosives) strategy was published in December 2017. The aim of the strategy is
to continuously improve the prevention of and preparedness for CBRNE threats
and incidents to safeguard society and secure the functions vital to society. The
CBRNE strategy launched the revision process of the national Nuclear Security
Detection Architecture (NSDA) document, which was published in 2013. The
updated NSDA aims to enforce the CBRNE strategy in terms of RN (Radiological
and Nuclear) detection, including the identified research and development topics.
The revised NSDA also provides a public summary concerning the national
RN detection principles. The NSDA is expected to save resources and increase
authority effectiveness in countering RN criminality and terrorism. Even though
the CBRNE strategy and the NSDA derived from it are primarily concentrating
on crime prevention, the development of crime-scene investigation and nuclear
forensics techniques and processes are also included in them.
A national coordinating CBRNE committee and expert group were established
in 2019. Both the CBRNE committee (31 August 2021) and the expert group
(7 December 2020) have reviewed and approved the NSDA
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Agriculture and industry in the process of economic growth and inequality in Senegal, c.1848-1979
This thesis describes and analyses the path of structural change in the Senegalese economy from around the abolition of slavery in French-ruled insular Senegal in 1848 to the time of structural adjustment in 1979. A study of the economics of urban slavery in mid nineteenth-century Senegal uses the structure of slave prices to argue that urban growth in nineteenth century West Africa was constrained and conditioned by the existence of land abundance in the countryside and a highly seasonal potential labour force. I argue that urban inequality in these economies is driven by the accumulation of rents to those who can command scarce and inelastically supplied resources, like urban land, permanent and skilled labour, and credit. As Dakar—Senegal’s most important city—grew, it drew upon reserves of low-skilled labour in the countryside. Many migrants moved to Dakar seasonally, taking advantage of the possibilities of the urban economy during the long dry season. Male workers born in Dakar were much more likely to obtain well-paid, skilled work than migrants; upward social mobility was also relatively low by contemporary standards. This urban growth was rapid, but costly: a large share of national capital formation was devoted to providing the social overhead infrastructure necessary for growth. This created stark inequalities within the Dakarois economy. Workers’ wages in Dakar often grew faster than agricultural incomes using standard methods of measurement; however, if housing costs are adequately accounted for then urban unskilled wages never outpaced rural incomes by much. The fruits of the groundnut boom accrued mainly to urban landlords, not workers. The unequal distribution of agricultural growth placed severe constraints on industrialisation. An import-substituting strategy was always a risky proposition, but the failure of the attempts at postcolonial federalism in West Africa definitively doomed it: the size of the domestic Senegalese market and the structure of demand for industrial output was unlikely to allow import-substituting industries to achieve competitive efficiency
REDESIGNING THE COUNTER UNMANNED SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE
Includes supplementary material. Please contact [email protected] for access.When the Islamic State used Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) to target coalition forces in 2014, the use of UAVs rapidly expanded, giving weak states and non-state actors an asymmetric advantage over their technologically superior foes. This asymmetry led the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to spend vast sums of money on counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS). Despite the market density, many C-UAS technologies use expensive, bulky, and high-power-consuming electronic attack methods for ground-to-air interdiction. This thesis outlines the current technology used for C-UAS and proposes a defense-in-depth framework using airborne C-UAS patrols outfitted with cyber-attack capabilities. Using aerial interdiction, this thesis develops a novel C-UAS device called the Detachable Drone Hijacker—a low-size, weight, and power C-UAS device designed to deliver cyber-attacks against commercial UAVs using the IEEE 802.11 wireless communication specification. The experimentation results show that the Detachable Drone Hijacker, which weighs 400 grams, consumes one Watt of power, and costs $250, can interdict adversarial UAVs with no unintended collateral damage. This thesis recommends that the DOD and DHS incorporates aerial interdiction to support its C-UAS defense-in-depth, using technologies similar to the Detachable Drone Hijacker.DASN-OE, Washington DC, 20310Captain, United States Marine CorpsApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited
ENHANCING THE PERFORMANCE AND SECURITY OF ANONYMOUS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
With the increasing importance of the Internet in our daily lives, the private information
of millions of users is prone to more security risks. Users data are collected
either for commercial purposes and sold by service providers to marketeers or political
purposes and used to track people by governments, or even for personal purposes by
hackers. Protecting online users privacy has become a more pressing matter over the
years. To this end, anonymous communication networks were developed to serve this
purpose.
Tors anonymity network is one of the most widely used anonymity networks online; it
consists of thousands of routers run by volunteers. Tor preserves the anonymity of its
users by relaying the traffic through a number of routers (called onion routers) forming
a circuit. Tor was mainly developed as a low-latency network to support interactive
applications such as web browsing and messaging applications. However, due to some
deficiencies in the original design of Tors network, the performance is affected to the
point that interactive applications cannot tolerate it. In this thesis, we attempt to address
a number of the performance-limiting issues in Tor networks design.
Several researches proposed changes in the transport design to eliminate the effect of these problems and improve the performance of Tors network. In our work, we propose
"QuicTor," an improvement to the transport layer of Tors network by using Googles
protocol "QUIC" instead of TCP. QUIC was mainly developed to eliminate TCPs latency
introduced from the handshaking delays and the head-of-line blocking problem.
We provide an empirical evaluation of our proposed design and compare it to two other
proposed designs, IMUX and PCTCP.We show that QuicTor significantly enhances the
performance of Tors network.
Tor was mainly developed as a low-latency network to support interactive web browsing
and messaging applications. However, a considerable percentage of Tor traffic
is consumed by bandwidth acquisitive applications such as BitTorrent. This results
in an unfair allocation of the available bandwidth and significant degradation in the
Quality-of-service (QoS) delivered to users. In this thesis, we present a QoS-aware deep
reinforcement learning approach for Tors circuit scheduling (QDRL). We propose a
design that coalesces the two scheduling levels originally presented in Tor and addresses
it as a single resource allocation problem. We use the QoS requirements of different
applications to set the weight of active circuits passing through a relay. Furthermore,
we propose a set of approaches to achieve the optimal trade-off between system fairness
and efficiency. We designed and implemented a reinforcement-learning-based scheduling
approach (TRLS), a convex-optimization-based scheduling approach (CVX-OPT),
and an average-rate-based proportionally fair heuristic (AR-PF). We also compared the
proposed approaches with basic heuristics and with the implemented scheduler in Tor.
We show that our reinforcement-learning-based approach (TRLS) achieved the highest QoS-aware fairness level with a resilient performance to the changes in an environment
with a dynamic nature, such as the Tor networ
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