Constructing military alliance: shared language as a determinant of alliance sharing, design & duration

This dissertation comprises three papers investigating the impact of shared language among states on various aspects of their military alliance relations. The first paper establishes that states sharing a common language are more likely to maintain alliance ties, particularly evident in defensive alliances. The second paper delves into how a shared language among two or more states influences alliance design. The proposed "Sociolinguistic Theory of Alliance Design" posits that states with a shared language have a higher likelihood in opting for alliance features that do not encourage credible commitments when compared to states without a shared language. Achieving credible commitment-enhancing designs also entails a more strenuous negotiation process among language-sharing states, compared to their counterparts that do not share a common language. Four out of five alliance design dimensions among states sharing a language demonstrate these tendencies, with one anomaly that is also explainable. The third paper addresses the question of how a shared language might impact the likelihood of premature alliance termination. The findings suggest that alliances involving states sharing a language tend to be shorter-lived. These results stem from the multifaceted role of language—functionally aiding communication while also carrying a heuristic function that influences alliance sharing, design choices, and duration in both expected and unexpected ways. This research contributes to International Relations scholarship in several ways. It introduces language as an often- overlooked variable in military alliance literature. It bridges a gap in the literature’s paradigms by employing the rational choice method- ology to substantiate the explanatory power of language—an element more associated with constructivist scholarship

Decentralized Attack Search and the Design of Bug Bounty Schemes

Systems and blockchains often have security vulnerabilities and can be attacked by adversaries, with potentially significant negative consequences. Therefore, infrastructure providers increasingly rely on bug bounty programs, where external individuals probe the system and report any vulnerabilities (bugs) in exchange for rewards (bounty). We develop a simple contest model of bug bounty. A group of individuals of arbitrary size is invited to undertake a costly search for bugs. The individuals differ with regard to their abilities, which we capture by different costs to achieve a certain probability to find bugs if any exist. Costs are private information. We study equilibria of the contest and characterize the optimal design of bug bounty schemes. In particular, the designer can vary the size of the group of individuals invited to search, add a paid expert, insert an artificial bug with some probability, and pay multiple prizes

Crowdsearch

A common economic process is crowdsearch, wherein a group of agents is invited to search for a valuable physical or virtual object, e.g. creating and patenting an invention, solving an open scientific problem, or identifying vulnerabilities in software. We study a binary model of crowdsearch in which agents have different abilities to find the object. We characterize the types of equilibria and identify which type of crowd maximizes the likelihood of finding the object. Sometimes, however, an unlimited crowd is not sufficient to guarantee that the object is found. It even can happen that inviting more agents lowers the probability of finding the object. We characterize the optimal prize and show that offering only one prize (winner-takes-all) maximizes the probability of finding the object but is not necessarily optimal for the crowdsearch designer.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2304.0007

Artificial Bugs for Crowdsearch

Bug bounty programs, where external agents are invited to search and report vulnerabilities (bugs) in exchange for rewards (bounty), have become a major tool for companies to improve their systems. We suggest augmenting such programs by inserting artificial bugs to increase the incentives to search for real (organic) bugs. Using a model of crowdsearch, we identify the efficiency gains by artificial bugs, and we show that for this, it is sufficient to insert only one artificial bug. Artificial bugs are particularly beneficial, for instance, if the designer places high valuations on finding organic bugs or if the budget for bounty is not sufficiently high. We discuss how to implement artificial bugs and outline their further benefits

Human Security in Southeast Asia : 20 Years in Review

The concept of human security gained prominence in Southeast Asia in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998. In a rapidly changing ASEAN, the list of human insecurities covers issues of both development and security, and fall within the ambit of both freedom from want and freedom from fear. But while human security has gained traction 20 years since the 1994 UNDP Human Development Report, more needs to be done to translate discourse into action. This article argues that in order to advance human security ASEAN states must be imbued with the political will to act decisively in addressing human insecurities and to work with other actors in promoting protection and empowerment of people and communities

ความไม่ชอบน้ำและการยับยั้งแบคทีเรียของผ้าฝ้ายเคลือบด้วยไคโตซาน ไทเทเนียมไดออกไซด์และซิลิกา(HYDROPHOBICITY AND ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY OF COATED COTTON FABRICS WITH CHITOSAN, TiO2 AND SiO2)

การเตรียมผ้าฝ้ายเคลือบไทเทเนียมไดออกไซด์เจือด้วยซิลิกาและไคโตซานมีวัตถุประสงค์เพื่อศึกษาและพัฒนาผ้าฝ้ายให้มีความสามารถยับยั้งเชื้อแบคทีเรีย และสมบัติไม่ชอบน้ำเพื่อความสามารถทำความสะอาดตัวเองได้ ซึ่งผ้าฝ้ายที่มีสมบัติดังกล่าวเตรียมได้โดยการการจุ่มเคลือบสารโฟโตแคตะไลติกของไทเทเนียมไดออกไซด์เจือด้วยซิลิกาและไคโตซานที่สังเคราะห์ด้วยวิธีโซล-เจลลงบนผืนผ้า ซึ่งผ้าเคลือบสารดังกล่าวแสดงสมบัติความไม่ชอบน้ำซึ่งได้จากการทดสอบวัดมุมสัมผัสของหยดน้ำบนพื้นผิวผ้า การทดสอบสมบัติการยับยั้งแบคทีเรียโดยใช้เชื้ออิโคไล (E. coli) และสแตฟิโลค็อกคัส ออเรียส (S. aureus) ภายใต้การมาตรฐานการทดสอบสิ่งทอ AATCC นอกจากนี้ผ้าฝ้ายที่เคลือบวัสดุผสมแล้วยังมีการศึกษาโครงสร้างจุลภาคด้วยกล้องจุลทรรศน์อิเล็กตรอนแบบส่องกราด (SEM) และองค์ประกอบทางเคมีวิเคราะห์ด้วยเทคนิค FTIR ผลจากการศึกษาแสดงให้เห็นว่าการเคลือบผ้าฝ้ายทำให้พื้นผิวผ้ามีความไม่ชอบน้ำเพิ่มขึ้น และสามารถยับยั้งแบคทีเรียทั้ง 2 ชนิด ได้สูงถึง 100 เปอร์เซ็นต์ หลังจากผ่านไป 24 ชั่วโมงคำสำคัญ: ผ้าฝ้าย  ความไม่ชอบน้ำ  การยับยั้งแบคทีเรียCotton fibers were coated with TiO2 doped SiO2 and chitosan to explore a method and improve hydrophobicity and antibacterial activity of the cotton fabric surface for self-cleaning. Photocatalytic TiO2 doped SiO2 and chitosan composite films were prepared by sol-gel method. Cotton fabrics were coated with chitosan (CS), TiO2 (Ti) and SiO2 (Si) by dipping. The hydrophobicity of the cotton fabrics was determined in terms of the contact angles of water droplets on the coated TiO2 composite films with UV irradiation. The antibacterial activity of the cotton surfaces was evaluated against Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Streptococcus aureus (S. aureus) according to AATCC test methods. The morphology of theTiO2 films was observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and the chemical composition of the prepared films was analyzed by FTIR spectrometry. The results showed that the cotton fabric surface coating can improve hydrophobicity and antibacterial activity against E. coli and S. aureus as high as 100% even after exposure 24 hours.Keywords: Cotton Fabrics, Hydrophobicity, Antibacterial Activit

Impacts of Current Global Economic Crisis on Asia’s Labor Market

The paper investigates the labor market and social impacts of the global financial and economic crisis in Asia and the Pacific as well as national policy responses to the crisis. It draws on recent macroeconomic, trade, production, investment, and remittances data to assess the employment and social consequences of the crisis, including falling demand for labor, rising vulnerable and informal employment, and falling incomes and their related pressures on the working poor. The paper provides some projections of the impact on unemployment, vulnerable employment, working poverty, and labor productivity in the region in 2009. It demonstrates that labor market recovery is likely to lag behind output growth, based on the experience of Asian labor markets following the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The paper underscores some policy options that are likely to have positive outcomes toward generating employment and boosting aggregate demand, improving social protection and welfare on the basis of decent work principles, and promoting a sound and sustainable economic and labor market recovery