WINGSForum 2006: Making a Difference in Philanthropy, Conference Report

WINGS Forum 2006, held November 16-18, 2006 in Bangkok, Thailand, attracted 50% more participants than the Sydney event and was accompanied by extensive satellite meetings between two specialised constituencies within the WINGS network: these worked on the promotion, development and support of community foundations and corporate giving. This report consists of the main speeches, workshop presentations, and discussions as well as a taste of the networking and social events. The many individuals and organisations who helped to make WINGSForum 2006 possible are acknowledged at the end of the report

GraphSE2^2: An Encrypted Graph Database for Privacy-Preserving Social Search

In this paper, we propose GraphSE$^2$, an encrypted graph database for online social network services to address massive data breaches. GraphSE$^2$ preserves the functionality of social search, a key enabler for quality social network services, where social search queries are conducted on a large-scale social graph and meanwhile perform set and computational operations on user-generated contents. To enable efficient privacy-preserving social search, GraphSE$^2$ provides an encrypted structural data model to facilitate parallel and encrypted graph data access. It is also designed to decompose complex social search queries into atomic operations and realise them via interchangeable protocols in a fast and scalable manner. We build GraphSE$^2$ with various queries supported in the Facebook graph search engine and implement a full-fledged prototype. Extensive evaluations on Azure Cloud demonstrate that GraphSE$^2$ is practical for querying a social graph with a million of users.Comment: This is the full version of our AsiaCCS paper "GraphSE$^2$: An Encrypted Graph Database for Privacy-Preserving Social Search". It includes the security proof of the proposed scheme. If you want to cite our work, please cite the conference version of i

Climates of suspicion: 'chemtrail' conspiracy narratives and the international politics of geoengineering

Concurrent with growing academic and policy interest in ‘geoengineering’ the global climate in response to climate change, a more marginal discourse postulating the existence of a climate control conspiracy is also proliferating on the Internet. Here, the term ‘chemtrails’ is used interchangeably with the term geoengineering to describe the belief that the persistent contrails left by aeroplanes provide evidence that a secret programme of large scale weather and climate modification is on-going. Despite recent calls for greater appreciation of the diverse ways in which people conceive of and relate to ideas of climate control, and widespread acknowledgement of the importance of democratic public engagement in governance of geoengineering, the chemtrail conspiracy narrative has received very little attention in academic work to date. This paper builds on work highlighting the instability of the distinction between ‘paranoid’ and ‘normal’ views, and examines the chemtrail conspiracy narrative as a discourse rather than a pathology (either psychological or sociological). The analysis finds that while some elements of the chemtrail narrative do not lend themselves to democratic processes of deliberation, and potential for engagement with more mainstream discourse appears to be low, nevertheless certain elements of the discourse (such as the moral outrage at the idea of powerful elites controlling the climate, or the importance of emotional and spiritual connections to weather and climate) highlight concerns of relevance to mainstream geoengineering debates. Furthermore, the pervasive suspicion that characterises the narrative and its reminder of the key role that trust plays in knowledge creation and the justification of beliefs, signals what is likely to be a perennial issue in the emerging international politics of geoengineering

Growing green?: co-creating an evidence-based model of SME engagement

Topic: This paper reports on our experiences in running a pilot ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) project that addresses the issue of ‘sustainable growth’ by engaging SME owners and managers in facilitated workshop discussions on this important, yet highly contested topic. If the UK and other countries are to meet their carbon reduction obligations, it is clear that SMEs will need to make significant, and in some cases radical changes, not only in terms of their day-to-day operational practices but also in their longer-term trajectories. However, policymakers face substantial obstacles in communicating with this audience, including: the scale and diversity of the SME population, competing priorities, competitive pressures and resource constraints. This project combines published research on SMEs, their growth processes and environmental behaviours, with specialist expertise in SME engagement and climate change communication. Aim: The multi-partner collaboration is designed to co-create new knowledge on environmentally sustainable growth in SMEs. Its primary aim is to help SMEs and intermediaries gain a better understanding of sustainable growth and its implications for their businesses. The team designed and trialled an innovative approach engagement, based on facilitated workshop discussions, creating an initial evidence base that will be coupled with a set of practical recommendations. The project builds on the academic and external partners’ complementary research insights into SMEs, organisational growth, climate change communication, energy use and associated policy-making. By incorporating the expertise of the practical insights of practitioners and intermediary organisations, the project seeks to initiate a vigorous knowledge exchange about the conceptualisation and practical application of sustainable growth. Methodology: Prior to engaging with SMEs, the team conducted a review of the literature on sustainable growth, which informed the engagement phase of the project. We also conducted a small survey of SME owners and managers and engaged in an informal consultation with stakeholders that informed the design and contents of the pilot workshops. Two half-day workshops were organised with SME owner and manager participants, facilitated by the communications specialists, Climate Outreach, and drawing on previous engagement projects with hard to reach groups. The workshops provided a forum for participants to engage in grounded, ‘peer to peer’ discussion about sustainable growth, expressed in their own terms and drawing on their own values and narratives. Audio recording of the workshops provided the basis for a thematic analysis, which has been combined with the other sources to construct this working paper. Contribution: The project is generating new insights into SME perspectives on sustainable growth that are grounded in relevant theory and evidence, coupled with practical tools that will be of value to practitioners and policymakers. The project team has also developed audio-visual resources, which will be used to raise awareness and help to provide the foundations for future engagement activity. The aim of the next phase of the project is to further refine this approach to engagement in the form of a more fully developed ‘toolkit’ and associated resources

Plein soleil and The Talented Mr Ripley: sun, stars and Highsmith's queer periphery

This article explores two cinematic adaptations of Patricia Highsmith's 1955 novel, The Talented Mr Ripley, about a young anti-hero who murders, and then steals the identity of, another American living in Italy: Ren? Cl?ment's Plein soleil (France/Italy 1960) and Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr Ripley (US/UK 1999). Drawing on both textual analysis and critical reception, the article explores how the traces of what might be termed Highsmith's 'queer periphery' are manifested and eroticized on the screen. Through such sun-drenched (homo)erotics, there is a very present sense of mythology, queer or otherwise, in the seductive Mediterranean landscape of these texts. The discussion thus explores issues of narrative, the stars Alain Delon, Jude Law and Matt Damon, and sexuality and landscape

Spartan Daily, April 22, 1958

Volume 45, Issue 110https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/12602/thumbnail.jp

Biljana Plavšić at the ICTY: a feminist analysis of representations of the self

This paper focuses on the legal defence of Biljana Plavšić before the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. It analyses the discursive strategies chosen by Plavšić in her plea of guilt. Utilising the theoretical concepts of motherhood, ' Beautiful Soul' , double and triple transgressions, and Othering, together with legal and criminological debates on chivalry, Plavšić' s representations of herself and her actions during the war are critically analysed. Studying the case of Plavšić, this article aims to enrich the existing feminist debates on the representation of violent women in the media and in justice tribunals