Distributed Key Management for Secure Role Based Messaging

Secure Role Based Messaging (SRBM) augments messaging systems with role oriented communication in a secure manner. Role occupants can sign and decrypt messages on behalf of roles. This paper identifies the requirements of SRBM and recognises the need for: distributed key shares, fast membership revocation, mandatory security controls and detection of identity spoofing. A shared RSA scheme is constructed. RSA keys are shared and distributed to role occupants and role gate keepers. Role occupants and role gate keepers must cooperate together to use the key shares to sign and decrypt the messages. Role occupant signatures can be verified by an audit service. A SRBM system architecture is developed to show the security related performance of the proposed scheme, which also demonstrates the implementation of fast membership revocation, mandatory security control and prevention of spoofing. It is shown that the proposed scheme has successfully coupled distributed security with mandatory security controls to realize secure role based messaging

Building Blocks of Difference: How Inequalities are (Re)Produced through Disciplinary Practices and Interactions in Preschool

Much policy research suggests preschool undermines educational inequalities, especially gender, race, and social class disparities in educational outcomes. Using data from ethnographic observations in three preschools (nine classrooms total) and interviews with preschool educators observed, this dissertation examines how disciplinary practices and disciplinary interactions in preschool classrooms construct and perpetuate social inequalities. In the second Chapter of my dissertation (published in Sociology of Education 2017) I find that heteronormativity permeates preschool classrooms where teachers construct and occasionally disrupt gendered sexuality in many ways, and children reproduce and sometimes resist these identities and norms in their daily play. Across the three preschools I observed, heteronormativity shaped teachers’ delineation of behaviors as appropriate or in need of discipline. Teachers’ approaches to gendered sexual socialization also affected their response to children’s behaviors such as heterosexual romantic play (kissing and relationships), bodily displays, and bodily consent. This work demonstrates how children begin to make sense of heteronormativity and the rules associated with sexuality through interactions with their teachers and peers in preschool. The third Chapter of my dissertation examines how disciplinary practices and disciplinary interactions operate in racialized, classed, and gendered ways, in preschool. Discipline inequality, especially experiences of exclusionary discipline, have long-term effects on educational outcomes. In this Chapter, I find preschool teachers’ perceptions of students’ misbehavior vary by students’ intersectional social statuses despite that most children’s self-regulation and behavioral skills are at similar stages developmentally in preschool. My data suggest that race, class, and gender compositions of preschool classrooms matter for students’ experiences of discipline inequalities. I found that preschool teachers provided more monitoring and discipline to girls from low-socioeconomic backgrounds when they were in classrooms that were mostly middle-class; middle-class black boys received more monitoring and discipline than their peers when they were in classrooms that were majority white, but that also had a significant proportion of black students; and I found equitable discipline in classrooms that were predominately non-white but racially diverse in the proportions of students from non-white subgroups, and that exclusively served low-SES students. The fourth Chapter of this dissertation examines how the “gender-neutral” developmental tenet, “follow the child”, guides the organizational logic and gender substructure of preschool classrooms. I argue that teachers assume a gendered child, and therefore “follow” a boy or a girl, resulting in preschool teachers “following the gendered child.” I find that in preschool, boys perceived behavioral “needs” are accommodated and receive less disciplinary responses from teachers, while girls receive increased disciplinary intervention for their behaviors. My data suggest that preschool teachers foster a masculine learning environment in which teachers implement gendered curricular accommodations (e.g., wrestling, gun play, and heavy work) aimed at fostering, rather than curbing, boys perceived unchangeable behavioral needs such as roughhousing and physical play. Additionally, I find that there is gender inequality in the distribution of resources in preschool classrooms. I argue that “following the child” results in teachers utilizing gendered practices which differentially prepare boys and girls for kindergarten, and may be at odds with the learning environments and expectations placed on boys in primary and secondary years of schooling. Taken collectively, the chapters of my dissertation provide qualitative data on how preschool disciplinary practices and disciplinary interactions construct and enforce unequal organizational arrangements for boys and girls in schooling.PHDSociologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146061/1/hgansen_1.pd

Parents join the club : inviting parents and children to participate in a family book club

A fifth grade elementary teacher who regularly uses book clubs as a part of her reading program offers the parents of her students the opportunity to learn about and participate in a book club with their children. The parents of the teacher\u27s 24 students were invited to attend an informational meeting to learn how book clubs function in their child\u27s classroom and to discover the value of discussion in developing and promoting reading comprehension. Eight parents and their children joined the Family Book Club. They all read In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Betty Bao Lord and attended three consecutive Sunday discussions. The teacher wanted to learn whether being involved in a book club would change the way the parents felt about reading to or with their pre-adolescent child, whether they would feel more informed about their child\u27s reading performance and instruction, and whether they would they feel this was an effective activity. On questionnaires, parental feedback regarding the experience was consistently positive

Organ Donation System: Revision in Three Phases and Counterarguments to Concerns Presented by Proponents of the Current Altruistic System

In 1984, organ donation was formally organized in the United States under the National Transplant Act. The legislation established many necessary institutions, but did not address the issue of rising demand and stagnant supply. Altruists believe education is the answer, but this approach has sentenced thousands to death. Commercialization of organ procurement is a viable solution. Commercializing the procurement sector will increase efficiency, alleviate shortages, and save lives. The policy and legal implications are complex but a basic outline for a commercialized system is derived from researchers’ suggestions, economics, and lessons from the commercialized sperm donation system. Objections to commercialization are discussed, but these objections are not as important as saving lives

Mel Gibson. Remembered Reading: Memory, Comics and Post-War Constructions of British Girlhood. Leuven: Leuven UP, 2015.

Review of Mel Gibson. Remembered Reading. Memory, Comics and Post-War Constructions of British Girlhood. Leuven: Leuven UP, 2015

The More the Better? Effects of Training and Information Amount in Legal Judgments

In an experimental study we investigated effects of information amount and legal training on the judgment accuracy in legal cases. In a two (legal training: yes vs. no) x two (information amount: high vs. low) between-subjects design, 90 participants judged the premeditation of a perpetrator in eight real-world cases decided by the German Federal Court of Justice. Judgment accuracy was assessed in comparison with the Court’s ruling. Legal training increased judgment accuracy, but did not depend on the amount of information given. Furthermore, legal training corresponded with higher confidence. Interestingly, emotional reactions to the legal cases were stronger when more information was given for individuals without legal training but decreased for individuals with training. This interaction seems to be caused by fundamental differences in the way people construct their mental representations of the cases. We advance an information processing perspective to explain the observed differences in legal judgments and conclude with a discussion on the merits and problems of offering more information to lay people participating in legal decision making.

CON LA GARGANTA ABIERTA: LA RETÓRICA EN LA LUCHA POR LA AMAZONÍA EN UN VIEJO QUE LEÍA NOVELAS DE AMOR

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Chromatin at the Nanolevel - Development of a single molecule FRET experiment and analysis of the structure and stability of individual nucleosomes

The structure and stability of individual nucleosome complexes is analysed on the single molecule level. Both aspects are important for the organisation of chromatin inside the nucleus, e.g. by controlling the accessibility of DNA to transcription factors. On the level of individual nucleosomes in vitro experiments provide valuable information on the processes responsible for dynamic changes in the nucleosome structure. An experimental setup is presented which monitors the conformation of freely diffusing complexes. Nucleosomal DNA is labeled with small fluorophores and Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) is used to monitor changes in nucleosome structure with nm accuracy. Experiments are presented in which various remodelling factors induce detectable changes in the nucleosome conformation. A major focus is laid on the stability of nucleosomes under the influence of various factors such as ionic strength, total nucleosome concentration, histone tail acetylation and the use of different DNA sequences. Nucleosomes dissociate spontaneously at low sample concentrations and sequence-specific changes in nucleosome structure occur on the ms time scale. Histone tail acetylation also results in a destabilisation of the nucleosome complex. The dissociation at larger ionic strength correlates with an opening of the overall nucleosome structure which predominantly affects the linker DNA region