Pricing and Investments in Internet Security: A Cyber-Insurance Perspective

Internet users such as individuals and organizations are subject to different types of epidemic risks such as worms, viruses, spams, and botnets. To reduce the probability of risk, an Internet user generally invests in traditional security mechanisms like anti-virus and anti-spam software, sometimes also known as self-defense mechanisms. However, such software does not completely eliminate risk. Recent works have considered the problem of residual risk elimination by proposing the idea of cyber-insurance. In this regard, an important research problem is the analysis of optimal user self-defense investments and cyber-insurance contracts under the Internet environment. In this paper, we investigate two problems and their relationship: 1) analyzing optimal self-defense investments in the Internet, under optimal cyber-insurance coverage, where optimality is an insurer objective and 2) designing optimal cyber-insurance contracts for Internet users, where a contract is a (premium, coverage) pair

Drinking water quality and farming practices on dairy farms in the greater Mangaung Metro, South Africa

ThesisDairy farms produce large volumes of animal waste comprising of manure, urine and dairy wash water. In South Africa, dairy waste is usually discharged onto pastures and land by irrigation or flooding which has been known to pollute groundwater with faecally derived microorganisms and nitrates. This study was undertaken to assess groundwater quality on dairy farms in the greater Mangaung area of the Free State. Secondly, the minor aim was to investigate factors that may influence groundwater quality on the farms. These included farming management practices, dairy farm infrastructure and dairy farm waste disposal. Groundwater quality data was collected on 75 dairy farms in 2009. A follow-up study was undertaken in 2013, however, because many farms had ceased production, only 34 farms were included in this round. The groundwater quality data of the 75 farms assessed in 2009 revealed that many farms were compliant with the South African National Standard for Drinking Water. However, 49% of the farms exceeded the limit for nitrates, 60% for total coliforms and 29% for Escherichia coli. When the data gathered on the 34 farms in 2013 were compared to the same farms’ data of 2009, it was found that 45% of the farms in 2009 and 57% in 2013 demonstrated hardness levels that could pose a risk to sensitive consumer groups, such as infants, the aged and the immune compromised. The groundwater on many farms tested as hard or very hard, while the water on a few farms tested extremely hard. Since water is used in all dairy cleaning operations, these levels of hard water could add an additional cost to the running of a dairy by reducing the life span of equipment and increasing the amount of soap used. On 18.9% of the farms in 2009 and 5.6% in 2013, the counts of coliforms exceeded 1 000 per 100 m l groundwater, posing a serious health risk for all consumers. Groundwater with counts of 10 – 100 coliforms per 100 m l could result in clinical infections in consumers, but counts of 100 – 1 000 coliforms could cause infections, even with once-off consumption. In this study, three of the 2013 farms (8.8%) demonstrated counts of E. coli greater than 100 per 100 m l, posing a serious health risk to the consumers. Counts in the region of 10 – 100 per 100 m l were observed in groundwater of 17.6% of the 2009 farms and 29.4% on the 2013 farms. Therefore, consumers on these farms are at risk of clinical infections. Furthermore, when such poor quality water is used in a dairy, the quality of raw milk and products may be affected. Moreover, the number of farms that presented a health risk increased from 41.2% in 2009 to 50.0% in 2013. One of the most effective ways to communicate water quality information is through the use of an index which aggregates all water quality data into a single value. Through a review of literature, three prominent water quality indexes were selected, evaluated and modified; the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME-WQI), the Weighted (W-WQI) and the Weighted Arithmetic (WA-WQI). Environmental health limits were assigned to eight selected water quality parameters and Water Quality Index (WQI) values calculated using 2013 data. WQI values were categorised into five classes ranging from excellent to unacceptable. When these results were compared with a manual rating of the data, the versatile W-WQI provided the most accurate description of data. The index was then applied to the 2009 and 2013 groundwater quality data of 34 farms. Results revealed an improvement from 2009 to 2013, however, the change was not significant (p = 0.110). Overall, the quality of groundwater on these dairy farms is poor and could pose a health risk to consumers, farm animals and the quality of raw milk and products. During 2013, management practices and infrastructural data were recorded on 34 dairy farms. All farms in this study depend on untreated groundwater for domestic and dairy activities. More than two thirds of the farms (85.3%) disposed of the dairy effluent by means of flooding or collection in shallow soil dams, while only five farmers re-used dairy effluent as fertiliser. The results also indicate that, although dairy farms vary in milk yield and size, they are designed and managed to prevent obvious groundwater contamination by dairy effluent. Possible correlations between farm management practices, infrastructure and the poor water quality revealed a weak negative correlation between the number of cows on a farm and the coliform values in the groundwater ( R 2 = 0.0023). Also, no correlation existed between the number of cows on a farm and the E. coli values or the number of cows and the nitrate values in the groundwater. These results suggested that the link between groundwater pollution and farm management practices and infrastructure are not clear and in need of further investigation. This study supports the findings that groundwater is vulnerable to pollution. In particular, the microbiological quality of the groundwater on the dairy farms was poor. The high levels of coliforms and E. coli in the groundwater confirm faecal pollution that could be indicative of poor sanitary conditions. This water contains high concentrations of microbial organisms and nitrates. Vulnerable groups on the farms are therefore at risk of becoming ill. Furthermore, the use of poor quality groundwater in dairy activities and other agricultural activities, such as the irrigation of crops, may further impact produce quality and could ultimately impact the health of consumers

Application of a water-related environmental health epidemiological process : a guide for environmental health practitioners

ThesisOne of the more suitable methodologies to follow to assess the impacts of environmental factors on the health of humans would be the epidemiological process. Environmental health practitioners in South Africa are, however, ill equipped to use this process and thereby lose an effective tool in its service abilities. This situation is aggravated by the lack of a suitable guide that can be used to lead such a process. It was therefore decided to conduct a study that could lay the foundation for developing a guide for using epidemiology in environmental health practice under typical South African conditions. An epidemiological survey was conducted within an extended research programme to study the effects of stored domestic water on the health of the consumers in Section K, Botshabelo, a developing urban settlement in the south-eastern Free State. In the study area, people used various types of containers to move drinking water from the municipal supply (public standpipes or yard taps) to their individual dwellings to store for daily use. The main aim of this study was to determine whether the people's water-use patterns that had developed around this method of haulage-and-storage had a detrimental effect, specifically diarrhoea, on their health. The study design entailed an environmental health survey, which provided an opportunity to compile a guide for the application of such an environmental health epidemiological survey. This guide was written based on the experiences gained from conducting the community-based survey. During the survey, diarrhoea was used as an indicator of the health of the target community. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire designed for household respondents, completed by students. A proportional stratified sample of 300 households was randomly selected from a population of approximately 3326 households. Water provision, water storage, water use, sanitation, and personal hygiene were some of the key variables investigated in the study. Results indicated that infants (older than 1 year, up to 5 years old) were the age group that were affected most by diarrhoea. Container hygiene, container type (plastic or metal) and storage of water as well as poor sanitation in the area were variables related to the occurrence of diarrhoea. Other practices indicated by the survey as possible causes were unhygienic scooping of water from containers (including scooping-mug hygiene) and the presence of domestic animals in the household. The study indicated that an epidemiological survey could be appropriately applied to assess environmental health impacts although the results merely pointed towards tendencies. Several other potential variables such as food hygiene, baby-care hygiene as well as other personal and environmental hygiene practices were not investigated in this study. The use of an environmental health epidemiological study process can provide a useful investigative tool if suitably applied for the assessment of water quality effects on the health of humans. The guide developed from this study is seen to be provisional and is released for further evaluation, inputs and development

Striking a Balance: Identity, Language, and Belonging in the Gujarati-American Immigrant Community

This project explores the question of how children of immigrants negotiate a sense of belonging through expressions of bilingualism and biculturalism in the public and private spheres. Drawing upon insights from linguistic anthropology, Asian studies, and migration studies in conjunction with information gleaned from a series of semi-structured interviews of a single informant born in the United States to parents who emigrated from India, I seek to understand how a specific experience of an individual fits into the larger discussion of identity, language, and belonging. Experiencing culture is a distinctly and exclusively human process, and this project makes sure to treat the experience of “striking a balance” between cultural identities in terms of its human effects and consequences

Consequences of hydroelectric power plants on the river ecosystems

Hidroenergija je obnovljiv, ali nije i održiv („zelen“) i čist način proizvodnje električne energije i umanjivanja utjecaja klimatskih promjena. Održivost pretpostavlja isključivanje daljnjeg uništavanja ili većih šteta na važnim riječnim ekosustavima i biološkoj raznolikosti, a hidroelektrane i brane imaju ogroman i nepopravljiv učinak na okoliš, prirodu i društvo, kao što su: prekinuti kontinuitet toka rijeke, promjene životnih uvjeta, promjene režima pronosa sedimenta, onemogućena veza s okolnim površinskim i podzemnim vodama, šteta ribljeg fonda te utjecaj akumulacija na mikroklimu okolnog područja. Biološki/ekološki aspekti najčešće nisu obuhvaćeni energetskim politikama. Mnoge europske direktive i međunarodni dokumenti odnose se na ovaj problem, ali je njihova provedba tek u začecima, a promjena je nužna odmah kako bi se spasile preostale nepromijenjene, prirodne rijeke i sačuvala biološka raznolikost slatkovodnih ekosustava u Hrvatskoj, ali i općenito u svijetu.Hydroenergy is restorable, but not sustainable („green“) and clean way of producing electric energy and reducing climate changes. Sustainability means that there is no further destruction or bigger damages in important river ecosystems and biodiversity. As we can see, hydroelectrics and watergates have huge and ireclaimable influence on environment, nature and society, as discontinued river flow, changes of life conditions, changes in mode of sediment transfer, disabled connection with surrounding water above and in the ground, damage on fish fund and influence of reservoir on microclime of surrounding area. Biological/ecological aspects usually are not included by energetic politics. Many European directives and international documents take care of this problem, but their enforcement is still in the beginning, and changes are neceseary to save those rivers that are still natural and to save biodiversity of freshwater ecosystems in Croatia and in the world

The Human Capital Dimensions of Sustainable Investment: What Investment Analysts Need to Know

This paper identifies a number of questions that need to be answered if the growing interest in building investment portfolios of firms that follow socially and environmentally sustainable practices is to be successful in transforming the financial institutions and analysts from a liability to an asset in expanding the number of sustainable firms in the economy. Evidence from three decades of research on "high performance workplace practices" is reviewed that identifies what is required for firms to align human capital and financial strategies. A longer term research and education agenda is presented for answering the remaining open questions

“It’s War That\u27s Cruel”: The Evolution of Wartime Representation and ‘The Other’ in the American Musical

Musical theater has historically been a venue for Americans to come to terms with our past and present on both a national and an individual level as it stages and restages war mythology on the Broadway Stage. As the nation has won, lost, and abandoned foreign conflicts, the connotation, remembrance, and commemoration of war in American memory has shifted from romanticizing former conflicts to renegotiating their memory. Thus, this project examines how twentieth-century war memory is represented in the American musical, starting in the 1940s and continuing up to the present day. To do so, the phenomenon will be examined through case studies of three representative musicals across three thematic periods: the 1940s–1950s through the lens of South Pacific, the 1960s–1990s with Miss Saigon, and 2000s to the present day through Allegiance. Subsequently, as these musicals center on war in the Asia Pacific, this project examines their construction of the Asian and Pacific Islander “Other” and how it both measures war mythology and has shifted over time. As America has gone and returned from war, how those wars were experienced and subsequently remembered has changed national attitudes. Thus, war-based musicals have reacted to these attitudes and made strides towards more inclusive and objective portrayals of wartime and postwar experiences. By examining musicals in relation to representing war and shifts of opinion towards American war-making, this thesis illustrates how war mythology and the Asian and Pacific Islander “Other” has been negotiated and renegotiated on Broadway to highlight the significance of this intersection in musical theatre and war and society studies at large