The evaluation index system of ecological security of marine ranching is based on the assumption that there is independence among evaluation indexes in the existing studies, which ignores the complex interactive paths of marine ranching as an artificial ecosystem. In this study, the MRES evaluation network model that includes interdependent relationships is established based on the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response model and the analytic network process method. Then, the probabilistic linguistic term sets and analytic network process methods are used (...) to calculate the weights of the evaluation indexes of MRES. The overall evaluation value and the contribution rate of clusters are consequently defined and analyzed to reflect the performance of MRES. Finally, a case study is carried out for evaluating the MRES of marine ranches in Rongcheng by means of the proposed method. The conclusions are summarized as follows: The weights of clusters are ranked as Responses > Impact > Driver > State > Pressure, and “scientific management of fishery resources” is the most important index; the MRES performance of marine ranches in the city of Rongcheng is at the medium security grade on the whole, and all 11 samples are driven by the response. (shrink)

We propose a multi-step evaluation schema designed to help procurement agencies and others to examine the ethical dimensions of autonomous systems to be applied in the security sector, including autonomous weapons systems.

In recent years, network security has become a major concern. Using the Internet to store and analyze data has become an integral aspect of the production and operation of many new and traditional enterprises. However, many enterprises lack the necessary resources to secure information security, and selecting the best network security service provider has become a real issue for many enterprises. This research introduces a novel decision-making method utilizing the 2-tuple linguistic complex q-rung orthopair fuzzy numbers to (...) tackle this issue. We propose the 2TLCq-ROF concept by combining the complex q-rung orthopair fuzzy set with 2-tuple linguistic terms, including the fundamental definition, operational rules, scoring, and accuracy functions. Aggregation operators are the fundamental mathematical approach used to combine various inputs into a single output. Taking into account the interaction between the attributes, we develop the 2TLCq-ROF Hamacher operators by using the innovative operational rules. These operators include the 2TLCq-ROFH weighted average, 2TLCq-ROFH ordered weighted average, 2TLCq-ROFH hybrid average, 2TLCq-ROFH weighted geometric, 2TLCq-ROFH ordered weighted geometric, and 2TLCq-ROFH hybrid geometric operators. In addition, we talk about the properties of 2TLCq-ROFH operators such as idempotency, commutativity, monotonicity, and boundedness and also examine their spatial cases. To tackle the problems of the 2TLCq-ROF multiattribute group decision-making environment, we develop a novel approach according to the COPRAS model. Finally, to validate the feasibility of the given strategy, we employ a quantitative example related to select the best network security service provider. In comparison with existing approaches, the developed decision-making algorithm is most extensively used and reduces the loss of information. (shrink)

In this open peer commentary, we categorize the possible “neuroscience in national security” definitions of misuse of science and identify which, if any, are uniquely presented by advances in neuroscience. To define misuse, we first define what we would consider appropriate use: the application of reasonably safe and effective technology, based on valid and reliable scientific research, to serve a legitimate end. This definition presents distinct opportunities for assessing misuse: misuse is the application of invalid or unreliable science, or (...) is the use of reliable scientific methods to serve illegitimate ends. Ultimately, we conclude that while national security is often a politicized issue, assessing the state of scientific progress should not be. (shrink)

“Good governance” may be viewed as governance that effectively promotes human rights, human security and human development. This article discusses human security analysis, which in certain ways offers an integration of these “human” perspectives together with a “social” orientation, by combining a person-focus with systematic investigation of the environing systems of all sorts: physical, cultural, organizational. The importance of such analysis is illustrated through the example of climate change impacts and adaptation. The article presents applications of a human (...) security framework in governance, for policy analysis, planning and evaluation issues in climate change and other fields. The concluding section suggests that human security analysis may provide a way to apply insights from social quality analysis to detailed case investigation and policy analysis, while reducing macro-sociological abstraction and neglect of the natural environment. (shrink)

Perhaps the most widely touted of GPT-4’s at-launch, zero-shot capabilities has been its reported 90th-percentile performance on the Uniform Bar Exam. This paper begins by investigating the methodological challenges in documenting and verifying the 90th-percentile claim, presenting four sets of findings that indicate that OpenAI’s estimates of GPT-4’s UBE percentile are overinflated. First, although GPT-4’s UBE score nears the 90th percentile when examining approximate conversions from February administrations of the Illinois Bar Exam, these estimates are heavily skewed towards repeat test-takers (...) who failed the July administration and score significantly lower than the general test-taking population. Second, data from a recent July administration of the same exam suggests GPT-4’s overall UBE percentile was below the 69th percentile, and $$\sim$$ ∼ 48th percentile on essays. Third, examining official NCBE data and using several conservative statistical assumptions, GPT-4’s performance against first-time test takers is estimated to be $$\sim$$ ∼ 62nd percentile, including $$\sim$$ ∼ 42nd percentile on essays. Fourth, when examining only those who passed the exam (i.e. licensed or license-pending attorneys), GPT-4’s performance is estimated to drop to $$\sim$$ ∼ 48th percentile overall, and $$\sim$$ ∼ 15th percentile on essays. In addition to investigating the validity of the percentile claim, the paper also investigates the validity of GPT-4’s reported scaled UBE score of 298. The paper successfully replicates the MBE score, but highlights several methodological issues in the grading of the MPT + MEE components of the exam, which call into question the validity of the reported essay score. Finally, the paper investigates the effect of different hyperparameter combinations on GPT-4’s MBE performance, finding no significant effect of adjusting temperature settings, and a significant effect of few-shot chain-of-thought prompting over basic zero-shot prompting. Taken together, these findings carry timely insights for the desirability and feasibility of outsourcing legally relevant tasks to AI models, as well as for the importance for AI developers to implement rigorous and transparent capabilities evaluations to help secure safe and trustworthy AI. (shrink)

Health security has become a popular way of justifying efforts to control catastrophic threats to public health. Unfortunately, there has been little analysis of the concept of health security, nor the relationship between health security and other potential aims of public health policy. In this paper I develop an account of health security as an aversion to risky policy options. I explore three reasons for thinking risk avoidance is a distinctly worthwhile aim of public health policy: (...) that security is intrinsically valuable, that it is necessary for social planning and that it is an appropriate response to decision-making in contexts of very limited information. Striking the right balance between securing and maximizing population health thus requires a substantive, and hitherto unrecognized, value judgment. Finally, I critically evaluate the current health security agenda in light of this new account of the concept and its relationship to the other aims of public health policy. (shrink)

Purpose: The research explored empirical evidence to assess the impact of cyber security and supply chain risk on digital operations in the UAE pharmaceutical industry. Methodology/Design/Approach: Based on responses from 243 personnel working at 14 pharmaceutical manufacturing companies in Dubai, data were examined for normality, instrument validity and regression analysis. Cyber security and SC risk on digital operations were explored by applying convenient sampling and descriptive and analytical research design. Findings: The findings validated the significant positive association between (...) cyber security and supply chain risk with digital operations. Research implications and Limitations: The research model was developed with three variables evaluated only on the pharmaceutical industry in Dubai. Future research should focus on multiple manufacturing industries by covering a larger geographic area. Practical implications: When suppliers are highly concentrated, customer-focused organisations with uncertain levels of digital transformation could improve their ability to manage supply chain risk by diversifying their clients. Pharmaceutical firms may require a greater focus on technology-based manufacturing firms to build and maintain customer trust. Originality Value: To illustrate how the pharmaceutical industry has explored the relationship between cyber security, supply chain risk and digital operations, the research highlights the significant and convoluted consequences of the relationship model that have not been previously considered. (shrink)

Public consumption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies has been rarely investigated from the perspective of data surveillance and security. We show that the technology acceptance model, when properly modified with security and surveillance fears about AI, builds an insight on how individuals begin to use, accept, or evaluate AI and its automated decisions. We conducted two studies, and found positive roles of perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness (PU). AI security concern, however, negatively affected PEOU (...) and PU, resulting in less acceptance of AI—(1) use, (2) preference, and (3) participation. AI surveillance concern also had negative effects on the credibility of AI and its recommendations. We integrated extant literature on socio-demographic differences, providing an insight on how AI acceptance is based on one’s rationality regarding (1) technological risks (security/surveillance) and (2) benefits (PEOU/PU) as well as other contextual factors of socio-demographics. (shrink)

Although agriculture in Australia is very productive, the current food supply systems in Australia fail to deliver healthy diets to all Australians and fail to protect the natural resources on which they depend. The operation of the food systems creates ‘collateral damage’ to the natural environment including biodiversity loss. In coming decades, Australia’s food supply systems will be increasingly challenged by resource price inflation and climate change. Australia exports more than half of its current agricultural production. Government and business are (...) aiming to substantially increase production to bolster exports. This will increase pressure on agricultural resources and exacerbate ‘collateral’ damage to the environment. The Australian public have a deep and ongoing interest in a very wide range of issues associated with the food systems including the environment, health and sustainability. Food is something we require in order to live and a good diet is something we have to have to be healthy. For health over a life-time we need food security. However, we also require a range of other material goods and social arrangements in order to develop and flourish as human beings. And we need these other things to be secure over a life-time. Food is therefore one security among a range of other securities we need in order to flourish. The paper outlines a number of approaches, as examples, that help to identify what these other goods and arrangements might be. The approaches mentioned in this paper include human rights, national securities, human needs, authentic happiness, capabilities, sustainability and environmental ethics. The different approaches provide a way of evaluating the current situation and indicating a direction for change within the food systems that will address the problems. However, changing large systems such as those involved in food supply is difficult because inertias and vested interests make the current food supply systems resilient to change. The paper suggests that one of the first and ongoing tasks is to develop an understanding of the situation from a comprehensive social–ecological systems perspective. The paper also suggests that a practical leverage point for system change is restructuring the flow of information on the health, natural resources and biodiversity loss issues related to the food supply systems. (shrink)

In cloud security, intrusion detection system (IDS) is one of the challenging research areas. In a cloud environment, security incidents such as denial of service, scanning, malware code injection, virus, worm, and password cracking are getting usual. These attacks surely affect the company and may develop a financial loss if not distinguished in time. Therefore, securing the cloud from these types of attack is very much needed. To discover the problem, this paper suggests a novel IDS established on (...) a combination of a leader-based k-means clustering (LKM), optimal fuzzy logic system. Here, at first, the input dataset is grouped into clusters with the use of LKM. Then, cluster data are afforded to the fuzzy logic system (FLS). Here, normal and abnormal data are inquired by the FLS, while FLS training is done by the grey wolf optimization algorithm through maximizing the rules. The clouds simulator and NSL-Knowledge Discovery and DataBase (KDD) Cup 99 dataset are applied to inquire about the suggested method. Precision, recall, and F-measure are conceived as evaluation criteria. The obtained results have denoted the superiority of the suggested method in comparison with other methods. (shrink)

This article asks whether a country that suffers from serious environmental problems caused by another country could have a just cause for a defensive war? Danish philosopher Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen has argued that under certain conditions extreme poverty may give a just cause for a country to defensive war, if that poverty is caused by other countries. This raises the question whether the victims of environmental damages could also have a similar right to self-defense. Although the article concerns justice of war, (...) we will concentrate only on the issue of what can be just causes of war, instead of evaluating the entire justification of war. This is to say that we will limit our discussion to the question concerning just cause and leave aside more general questions concerning justness and moral permissibility of war. Our aim is to list the questions that must be made and settled if defensive war in the case of serious environmental problems is said to have (or not to have) a just cause. We will argue that there are three questions that are most important in this context. They are the question concerning liability, the question of collective responsibility, and the question whether environmental harms may create a “sufficient reason” for raising a war. (shrink)

Enterprise Risk Management involves the process of identification, evaluation, treatment, and communication regarding risks throughout the enterprise. To support the tasks associated with this process, several frameworks and modeling languages have been proposed, such as the Risk and Security Overlay (RSO) of ArchiMate. An ontological investigation of this artifact would reveal its adequacy, capabilities, and limitations w.r.t. the domain of risk and security. Based on that, a language redesign can be proposed as a refinement. Such analysis and (...) redesign have been executed for the risk elements of the RSO grounded in the Common Ontology of Value and Risk. The next step along this line of research is to address the following research problems: What would be the outcome of an ontological analysis of security-related elements of the RSO? That is, can we identify other semantic deficiencies in the RSO through an ontological analysis? Once such an analysis is provided, can we redesign the security elements of the RSO accordingly, in order to produce an improved artifact? Here, with the aid of the Reference Ontology for Security Engineering (ROSE) and the ontological theory of prevention behind it, we address the remaining gap by proceeding with an ontological analysis of the security-related constructs of the RSO. The outcome of this assessment is an ontology-based redesign of the ArchiMate language regarding security modeling. In a nutshell, we report the following contributions: (1) an ontological analysis of the RSO that identifies six limitations concerning security modeling; (2) because of the key role of the notion of prevention in security modeling, the introduction of the ontological theory of prevention in ArchiMate; (3) a well-founded redesign of security elements of ArchiMate; and (4) ontology-based security modeling patterns that are logical consequences of our proposal of redesign due to its underlying ontology of security. As a form of evaluation, we show that our proposal can describe risk treatment options, according to ISO 31000. Finally, besides presenting multiple examples, we proceed with a real-world illustrative application taken from the cybersecurity domain. (shrink)

This Article points to a widening gap between citizenship theories and practices. Although discourses of citizenship resonate widely and are used extensively by scholars and policy makers, the author argues that the social, economic, political and even psychological processes of citizenship are shrinking in a contemporary context of global insecurity where im/migration and ever more restrictive national security concerns have become enmeshed in law, as well as in the public consciousness. As a result, this Article explores new trends of (...) securitization and related processes of marketization, racialization and the invisibilization and/or instrumentalization of women and evaluates their impact on citizenship in Canada and Britain. A citizenship regime framework structures the analysis and highlights the contraction of citizenship in both countries. In the end, despite their purported concern with citizenship, social exclusion and social cohesion, British and Canadian state’s responses serve to perpetuate feelings of insecurity on the part of both citizens and non-citizens. (shrink)

How do we prevent the next pandemic? Will governments successfully tackle climate change? Will they find ways to close the gap between the haves and have-nots and to eliminate poverty? Which solution - democratic or authoritarian - will determine the global governance of a flawed nation-state system? This unique contribution to global studies advances a multidisciplinary theory that the governments of all human societies are the tenuous outcome of the competing solutions to the Imperatives of Order, Welfare, and Legitimacy (OWL). (...) The OWL paradigm provides a common framework to evaluate the contrasting responses of the liberal democratic, Chinese, and Russian solutions to global governance. Underscored is the volume's contention that global governance is the overriding issue confronting nation-states and the diverse and divided peoples of what is now a global society for the first time in the evolution of the species. The volume addresses a wide spectrum of audiences, united in their shared resolve that the democracies prevail in a projected century-long struggle between democratic and authoritarian regimes to determine global governance. Scholars, teachers, students, elected officials, policy analysts, media professionals, and engaged citizens who make self-government work will profit from this visionary and provocative study. (shrink)

Internet of Things-based environments pose various challenges due to their anytime/anywhere computing, and the efficient cryptographic based key management is one of the major challenges in Internet of Things. The key management life cycle consists of initialization, key generation, key registration, key backup, key update, key recovery, and key revocation. Our contribution in this paper is to summarize the state-of-the-art key management schemes and techniques in different scenarios, such as mobile ad hoc networks, wireless sensor networks, and the Internet of (...) Things environments. Further different issues related specifically to the Internet of Things environment are discussed and the causes and effects pertaining to the security breach for Internet of Things are identified. Furthermore, in this research work, we develop a novel permutation of threshold and identity-based key management schemes for the Internet of Things environment and have proposed future directions to counteract the attacks on confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and availability of security services in the Internet of Things environment and identified the two key management schemes, that is, identity and threshold schemes for Internet of Things, to resolve Internet of Things key management issues and maximum possible security services effective implementation. We evaluate our scheme with the help of mathematical and statistical techniques. (shrink)

This paper presents the results of an empirical study that reflects monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of some legal acts on the labour of the Republic of Lithuania. The analysis of legal documents at the national and international level is provided. A review of cognate studies conducted by foreign and Lithuanian researchers is presented and the professional situation of a Lithuanian teacher from the employee rights perspective is highlighted. The professional activities contexts and sectors, wherein systematic violations of (...) teachers’ rights to a healthy and safe working environment are possible, are distinguished. A lack of generalized scientific data of employee (especially teacher) working conditions, the actual security of relevant rights and its monitoring and evaluation is still felt both in the country and abroad. A contradiction between: a) insufficient research of the issue and b) its importance to science and practice, exactly presupposes the scientific problems of the empirical study presented in the given paper. The subject of the study: teachers’ rights to a healthy and safe working environment and a fair remuneration for their work. The objective of the study: to conduct monitoring and evaluation of the effective implementation of relevant legal norms and legal acts applying a written sociological survey. The study is based on the results of a mass country-wide written survey of teachers. (shrink)

BackgroundMoral case deliberation as a form of clinical ethics support is usually implemented in health care institutions and educational programs. While there is no previous research on the use of clinical ethics support on the level of health care regulation, employees of regulatory bodies are regularly confronted with moral challenges. This pilot study describes and evaluates the use of MCD at the Dutch Health Care Inspectorate.The objective of this pilot study is to investigate: 1) the current way of dealing with (...) moral issues at the IGZ; 2) experience with and evaluation of MCD as clinical ethics support, and 3) future preferences and needs regarding clinical ethics support for dealing with moral questions at the IGZ.MethodsWe performed an explorative pilot study. The research questions were assessed by means of: 1) interviews with MCD participants during four focus groups; and 2) interviews with six key stakeholders at the IGZ. De qualitative data is illustrated by data from questionnaires on MCD outcomes, perspective taking and MCD evaluation.ResultsProfessionals do not always recognize moral issues. Employees report a need for regular and structured moral support in health care regulation. The MCD meetings are evaluated positively. The most important outcomes of MCD are feeling secure and learning from others. Additional support is needed to successfully implement MCD at the Inspectorate.ConclusionWe conclude that the respondents perceive moral case deliberation as a useful form of clinical ethics support for dealing with moral questions and issues in health care regulation. (shrink)

Political short-termism costs the global economy hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars annually, and leads to many millions of deaths from disasters and suboptimal spending. In this paper, I propose a futures assembly explicitly incentivised to promote the interests of future generations as a promising strategy to ameliorate short-termism. The assembly I propose is governed by citizens randomly selected from among the populace, who are rewarded in the future to the extent that they successfully promote the welfare of future (...) generations. The most initially promising such retrospective accountability mechanism is an iterated mechanism, in which each generation of policymakers rewards the previous generation for their policy choices and for their own evaluation of the previous generation. Such an assembly, supplemented with the duties, powers, and tools that I describe, and with appropriate support from archivists and experts, may manage to represent generations many years into the future. (shrink)

The study focuses on the phenomenon of crime-causing (criminogenic) law. It includes a review of related studies on such laws and their criminal side-effects, the change in the legislator’s liability for effects of enacted laws, and the effects of the legislator’s afflatus on the potential criminogenic effects of law. Of special concern are cases where the legislator is aware of the potential criminogenic side-effects of a new law but carelessly neglects them. The study evaluates the tool for detection of probable (...) criminogenic effects proposed by a special EU study group. It is shown that the underlying assumptions in the creation of this tool do not ensure the detection of a significant portion of the ways in which a new law can cause criminogenic effects, and provides no sound basis for deciding whether to approve or to reject a new law. (shrink)

This chapter provides a philosophical analysis of the different meanings of “security” and, by so doing, identifies some key features of the concept of security. I begin by establishing a number of qualities which this chapter’s conceptual analysis should ideally possess. I then make an important distinction between security as a practice and security as a state of being, and argue that more attention should be paid to the latter if our goal is to interrogate the (...) justifiability of using security practices in the context of infectious disease emergencies. The latter half of the chapter investigates three common features of contemporary accounts of security: (1) the referent object, (2) the conditions that object must satisfy to be secure, and (3) the distinction between the objective and subjective realisation of those conditions. I argue that accounts of the meaning of “security” identify a referent object and a set of conditions which must be reliable for that referent. I conclude by suggesting that a deeper engagement by moral philosophers with the concept and value of security (as a state of being) is required if we are to get very far in evaluating the justifiability of treating infectious disease emergencies as security issues. (shrink)

This paper identifies two conceptions of security in contemporary concerns over the vulnerability of computers and networks to hostile attack. One is derived from individual-focused conceptions of computer security developed in computer science and engineering. The other is informed by the concerns of national security agencies of government as well as those of corporate intellectual property owners. A comparative evaluation of these two conceptions utilizes the theoretical construct of “securitization,”developed by the Copenhagen School of International Relations.

Evaluative and normative terms and concepts are often said to be "essentially contestable". This notion has been used in political and legal theory and applied ethics to analyse disputes concerning the proper usage of terms like democracy, freedom, genocide, rape, coercion, and the rule of law. Many philosophers have also thought that essential contestability tells us something important about the evaluative in particular. Gallie (who coined the term), for instance, argues that the central structural features of essentially contestable concepts secure (...) their evaluativeness. I'll argue that these (widely held) central features are exemplified by many evaluative and non-evaluative terms alike, owing to more general factors (such as multidimensionality) which have nothing in particular to do with being evaluative. The role of these factors in semantic interpretation is subject to a certain kind of "metasemantic" disputes which have the features of the disputes characteristically admitted by essentially contestable concepts (whether evaluative or not) and which can be similarly substantive and worthwhile. In closing I'll discuss how my argument shows that our understanding of evaluative disagreement needs refinement. The overall upshot is that essential contestability shows nothing deep or distinctive about the evaluative in particular. (shrink)

This paper discusses how the general and abstract concept of legitimacy applies to international institutions, using the United Nations Security Council as an example. We argue that the evaluation of the Security Council’s legitimacy requires considering three significant and interrelated aspects: its purpose, competences, and procedural standards. We consider two possible interpretations of the Security Council’s purpose: on the one hand, maintaining peace and security, and, on the other, ensuring broader respect for human rights. Both (...) of these purposes are minimally morally acceptable for legitimacy. Second, we distinguish between three different competences of the UNSC: 1) the decision-making competence, 2) the quasi-legislative competence, and 3) the referral competence. On this basis, we argue that different procedural standards are required to legitimise these competences, which leads to a more differentiated understanding of the Security Council’s legitimacy. While maintaining that the membership structure of the Council is a severe problem for its legitimacy, we suggest other procedural standards that can help to improve its overall legitimacy, which include broad transparency, deliberation, and the revisability of the very terms of accountability themselves. (shrink)

This forum contribution addresses two major themes in de Goede’s original essay on ‘Financial security’: (1) the relationship between stable markets and the proverbial ‘security dilemma’; and (2) the development of new decision-technologies to address risk in the post-World War II period. Its argument is that the confluence of these two themes through rational choice theory represents a fundamental re-evaluation of the security dilemma and its relationship to the rule of law governing market relations, ushering in (...) an era of perpetual physical and financial insecurity. (shrink)

When is it permissible to move an issue out of normal politics and treat it as a security issue? How should the security measures be conducted? When and how should the securitization be reversed? Floyd offers answers to these questions by combining security studies' influential securitization theory with philosophy's long-standing just war tradition, creating a major new approach to the ethics of security: 'Just Securitization Theory'. Of interest to anyone concerned with ethics and security, Floyd's (...) innovative approach enables scholars to normatively evaluate past and present securitizations, equips practitioners to make informed judgements on what they ought to do in relevant situations, and empowers the public to hold relevant actors accountable for how they view security. (shrink)

This study examines Japanese reactions to neighboring countries’ behavior by addressing possible micro-motives, such as patriotism, the rational demand for national defense, and retrospective policy evaluation. This theoretical development leads to distinctive hypotheses from different motivations and directly tests them using macro-data . This research will apply this framework to Japanese politics and will show that foreign threats stimulate patriotism in the public mind and enhance political support for national leaders. It will also demonstrate that the Japanese public has (...) no optimistic view of the new prime minister and that the honeymoon effect in previous research may be confounded with the patriotic effect because the new leader is less experienced and is often challenged by foreign countries. (shrink)

Connected devices, such as smartphones and tablets, are exposed to a large variety of attacks. Their protection is often challenged by their resource constraints in terms of CPU, memory and energy. Security chains, composed of security functions such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems and data leakage prevention mechanisms, offer new perspectives to protect these devices using software-defined networking and network function virtualization. However, the complexity and dynamics of these chains require new automation techniques to orchestrate them. This chapter (...) describes an automated orchestration methodology for security chains in order to secure connected devices and their applications. This methodology exploits process learning to establish behavioral models and infer security constraints represented as logical predicates. It then generates and merges a set of chains of security functions on the basis of these predicates. These chains are finally compiled into low-level configuration rules and deployed into the network, optimizing for the underlying topology. The benefits and limits of such a methodology combining machine learning and verification techniques are evaluated by a set of experimental results. (shrink)

Large Language Models (LLMs) could be a useful tool for lawyers. However, empirical research on their effectiveness in conducting legal tasks is scant. We study securities cases involving cryptocurrencies as one of numerous contexts where AI could support the legal process, studying GPT-3.5’s legal reasoning and ChatGPT’s legal drafting capabilities. We examine whether a) GPT-3.5 can accurately determine which laws are potentially being violated from a fact pattern, and b) whether there is a difference in juror decision-making based on complaints (...) written by a lawyer compared to ChatGPT. We feed fact patterns from real-life cases to GPT-3.5 and evaluate its ability to determine correct potential violations from the scenario and exclude spurious violations. Second, we had mock jurors assess complaints written by ChatGPT and lawyers. GPT-3.5’s legal reasoning skills proved weak, though we expect improvement in future models, particularly given the violations it suggested tended to be correct (it merely missed additional, correct violations). ChatGPT performed better at legal drafting, and jurors’ decisions were not statistically significantly associated with the author of the document upon which they based their decisions. Because GPT-3.5 cannot satisfactorily conduct legal reasoning tasks, it would be unlikely to be able to help lawyers in a meaningful way at this stage. However, ChatGPT’s drafting skills (though, perhaps, still inferior to lawyers) could assist lawyers in providing legal services. Our research is the first to systematically study an LLM’s legal drafting and reasoning capabilities in litigation, as well as in securities law and cryptocurrency-related misconduct. (shrink)

This research article uses the theoretical framework of doctrine as believer's security to critique the theological framework behind the controversial activities reported amongst some South African neo-Pentecostal prophets, which include feeding congregants with grass, spraying them with insecticides and sexual violation of women congregants. The framework of the article falls within the discipline of systematic theology by raising the importance for South African Christians to develop a critical doctrinal framework for protecting themselves from controversial NPPs. The following main question (...) is answered by the article: from a systematic theological perspective, how can we evaluate the theological framework, which leads to the recent controversial activities reported amongst some NPPs in South Africa? Consequently, the article, firstly, describes the critical theological framework of the protective role of Christian doctrine. Secondly, it describes the South African NPPs and their controversial practices. Thirdly, this article analyses some of the theological problems in the current operative framework of NPPs. Fourthly, it argues for the need for doctrinally informed critical thinking as a safety measure against controversial NPPs. Finally, some steps that must be taken by NPPs to develop critical theological thinking in order to overcome doctrinally vacuous experientialism that promotes controversial religious activities are provided.CONTRIBUTION: From a systematic theological approach, this article attempts to demonstrate the importance of critical doctrinal thinking as a defence mechanism for protecting Christians from falling prey to harmful religious practices, such as those recently reported amongst some NPPs in South Africa. (shrink)

Recently there is an increasing technological development in intelligent tutoring systems. This field has become interesting to many researchers. In this paper, we present an intelligent tutoring system for teaching information security. This intelligent tutoring systems target the students enrolled in Advanced Topics in Information Security in the faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. Through which the student will be able to study the course and solve related problems. An evaluation of the (...) intelligent tutoring systems was carried out and the results were promising. (shrink)

Causal processes can give rise to distinctive distributions in the linguistic variables that they affect. Consequently, a secure understanding of a variable's distribution can hold a key to understanding the forces that have causally shaped it. A storied distribution in linguistics has been Zipf's law, a kind of power law. In the wake of a major debate in the sciences around power-law hypotheses and the unreliability of earlier methods of evaluating them, here we re-evaluate the distributions claimed to characterize phoneme (...) frequencies. We infer the fit of power laws and three alternative distributions to 166 Australian languages, using a maximum likelihood framework. We find evidence supporting earlier results, but also nuancing them and increasing our understanding of them. Most notably, phonemic inventories appear to have a Zipfian-like frequency structure among their most-frequent members (though perhaps also a lognormal structure) but a geometric (or exponential) structure among the least-frequent. We compare these new insights the kinds of causal processes that affect the evolution of phonemic inventories over time, and identify a potential account for why, despite there being an important role for phonetic substance in phonemic change, we could still expect inventories with highly diverse phonetic content to share similar distributions of phoneme frequencies. We conclude with priorities for future work in this promising program of research. (shrink)

The power grid is an important connection between power sources and users, responsible for supplying and distributing electric energy to users. Modern power grids are widely distributed and large in scale, and their security faces new problems and challenges. Information entropy theory is an objective weighting method that compares the information order of each evaluation index to judge the weight value. With the wide application of entropy theory in various disciplines, the subject of introducing entropy into the power (...) system has been gradually concerned. This article aims to study the smart terminal security technology of the power grid perception layer based on information entropy data mining. This article analyzes its related methods and designs a smart terminal for the power grid. On this basis, a data analysis platform is built and a safety plan is designed. The result is that the average absolute error, root mean square error, average absolute percentage error, and mean square error of the platform's power load forecast are 1.58, 1.96, 8.2%, and 3.93, respectively. These error values are within the ideal range, and the data processing ability is strong. The packet loss rate of the adversary's eavesdropping was tested, and the average packet loss rates at locations a, b, c, and d were 1.05, 1.2, 1.81, and 2.2%, respectively. Data packets will be definitely lost, so the platform is highly secure. (shrink)

: Lately there is more attention paid to technological development in intelligent tutoring systems. This field is becoming an interesting topic to many researchers. In this paper, we are presenting an intelligent tutoring system for teaching DES Information Security Algorithm called DES-Tutor. The DES-Tutor target the students enrolled in cryptography course in the department Information Technology in Al-Azhar University in Gaza. Through DES-Tutor the student will be able to study course material and try the exercises of each lesson. An (...) evaluation of the DES-Tutor was carried out and the results were promising. (shrink)

Modern analytical just war theory starts with Michael Walzer's defense of key tenets of the laws of war in his Just and Unjust Wars. Walzer advocates noncombatant immunity, proportionality, and combatant equality: combatants in war must target only combatants; unintentional harms that they inflict on noncombatants must be proportionate to the military objective secured; and combatants who abide by these principles fight permissibly, regardless of their aims. In recent years, the revisionist school of just war theory, led by Jeff McMahan, (...) has radically undermined Walzer's defense of these principles. This essay situates Walzer's and the revisionists’ arguments, before illustrating the disturbing vision of the morality of war that results from revisionist premises. It concludes by showing how broadly Walzerian conclusions can be defended using more reliable foundations. (shrink)

This paper engages an important debate going on in the literature regarding the efficacy of nonviolence in confronting unjust regimes. I will focus on the commentators who have claimed that nonviolence, if adhered to more resolutely, would have ended South African apartheid sooner. I will contrast them to Mandela’s account that both violence and nonviolence working in tandem were needed to bring a speedy and just resolution to South Africa’s crisis of racist governance. To consider South Africa an easy case (...) of nonviolence’s success (for example, as shown in A Force More Powerful), evades many important factors. Mandela was familiar with Gandhian nonviolence and explicitly rejected it. The ANC organized an armed faction and engaged in acts of sabotage, and over time widened the scope of violent acts condoned by their organization. South African security forces responded to nonviolent protest with extreme repression, which contradicts claims often made by nonviolent proponents that sticking to nonviolence will lessen the chances of extreme repression. And the suffering of the South African people, while perhaps dwarfed when compared to genocides in other countries, was extensive and profound. One cannot understand some aspects of the difficult aftermath of apartheid’s legacy without taking into account the high level of violence emanating from several parties to the conflict. Nevertheless, in this context of violence, a broad nonviolent campaign had many successes. (shrink)

Coordination of a power system with the phasor measurement devices in real time on the load and generation sides is carried out within the context of smart grid studies. Power systems equipped with information systems in a smart grid pace with external security threats. Developing a smart grid which can resist against cyber threats is considered indispensable for the uninterrupted operation. In this study, a two-way secure communication methodology underpinned by a chaos-based encryption algorithm for PMU devices is proposed. (...) The proposed system uses the IEEE-14 busbar system on which the optimum PMU placement has been installed. The proposed hyperchaotic system-based encryption method is applied as a new security methodology among PMU devices. The success of results is evaluated by the completeness of data exchange, durations, the complexity of encryption-decryption processes, and strength of cryptography using a microcomputer-based implementation. The results show that the proposed microcomputer-based encryption algorithms can be directly embedded as encryption hardware units into PMU and PDC devices which have very fast signal processing capabilities taking into considerations the acceptable delay time for power system protection and measuring applications and quality metering applications which is 2 ms and 10 ms, respectively. While proposed algorithms can be used in TCP or UDP over IP-based IEEE C37.118, IEC 61850, and IEC 61850-90-5 communication frameworks, they can also be embedded into electronic cards, smartcards, or smart tokens which are utilized for authentication among smart grid components. (shrink)

With twentieth- and twenty-first-century philosophy of science’s unfolding acceptance of the nature of scientific inquiry being value-laden, the persistent worry has been that there are no means for legitimate negotiation of the social or non-epistemic values that enter into science. The rejection of the value-free ideal in science has thereby been coupled with the spectres of indiscriminate relativism and bias in scientific inquiry. I challenge this view in the context of recently expressed concerns regarding Canada's death of evidence controversy. The (...) worry, raised by Stathis Psillos, is that as constructivist accounts of science demoted the previously secure status of evidence for drawing justified conclusions in science, we were left with no rational delineation between the right and wrong values for science. The implication for the death of evidence controversy is that we may have no rational grounds for claiming that the Canadian Government is wrong to interfere with scientific enterprise. But he does offer another avenue for reaching the conclusion that the wrong social values are directing the current stifling of some sectors of Canadian science. Psillos draws from standpoint epistemologies to devise a salient defence of ‘valuing evidence’ as a universalizable social value. That is, government bodies ought to enable scientific research via adequate funding as well as political non-interference. In this paper, I counter that non-epistemic values can be rationally evaluated and that standpoint epistemology’s universalizable standpoint provides an inadequate framework for negotiating social values in science. Regarding, I draw from the evidence-based medicine debate in philosophy of medicine and from feminist empiricist investigations into the science–values relationship in order to make the argument for empirically driven value arbitration. If social values can be rationally chosen in the context of justification, then we can have grounds for charging the Canadian leadership with being ‘at war with science’. I further argue that my recommended empiricist methodology is preferable to Psillos’s search for universalizable perspectives for negotiating social values in science because the latter method permits little more than the trivial conclusion that evidence is valuable to science. (shrink)

In this paper, I criticize the pairing of irreducible thickness with the traditional view of evaluation which says evaluation is a matter of encoding good or bad in some way. To do this, I first explicate the determination view, which holds that irreducibly thick concepts are to thin concepts as determinates are to determinables. I then show that, even if the determination view did establish irreducible thickness, it would not have proven that the evaluative is well understood as (...) being an instance of the determination relation; in order to do that, the determination view needs to show how the evaluative fit a general analysis of the determination relation. However, when the determination view attempts to fill in the analysis, we get implausible results—so implausible, I claim, that we should see the results as a reductio to the view. To generalize the criticism to any view like the determination view, I show that the same results ensue when we model the evaluative on mereology. Finally, I diagnose the general failure by claiming that the evaluative domain, as conceived by the defender of irreducible thickness, just does not have the structure to secure the tight connection between thick and thin concepts while also carving up our conceptual economy in a plausible way. (shrink)

This empirical research applies cointegration in the traditional measurement method first to build directed weighted networks in the context of stock market. Then, this method is used to design the indicators and the value simulation for measuring network fluctuation and studying the dynamic evolution mechanism of stock market transaction networks as affected by price fluctuations. Finally, the topological structure and robustness of the network are evaluated. The results show that network structure stability is strong in the bull market stage and (...) weak in the bear market stage. And the convergence rate of the dynamic evolution of network fluctuation is higher in the bull market stage than in the bear market stage. (shrink)

The notion of 'the West' is commonly used in politics, the media, and in the academic world. To date, our idea of 'the West' has been largely assumed and effective, but has not been examined in detail from a theoretical perspective. Uses of 'the West' combines a range of original and topical approaches to evaluate what 'the West' really does, and how the idea is being used in everyday political practice. This book examines a range of uses of 'the West', (...) and traces how 'the West' works in a broad array of conceptual and empirical contexts, ranging from the return of geopolitics - via a critical review of the debates surrounding Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilization thesis - to the question of the future of 'the West'. Analysis extends further to the repercussions of the war on terror on Western democracy and the processes of delineating the Western from the non-Western, as well as observations of the institutional transformations of Western order. (shrink)

Noel Hendrickson believes that free will is separable from the “evaluative intuitions” with which it has been traditionally associated. But what are these intuitions? Answer: principles such as PAP, Β, and UR (6). The thesis that free will is separable from these principles, however, is hardly unique, as they are also eschewed by compatibilists who are unwilling to abdicate altogether evaluative intuitions. We are told in addition that there are “metaphysical senses” of free will that are not “relevant to responsibility” (...) (4). Yet Hendrickson’s rejection of the above principles depends upon them being less certain than his “intuitions of responsibility” (6). Moreover, he later speculates about the relationship between free will’s “metaphysical (and) responsibility securing roles” (8-10). Our evaluative intuitions are finally said to “concern when a person should be evaluated as responsible (and so blameworthy and praiseworthy)” (3). If these intuitions are not “evidence of the set of the conditions for responsibility,” as Hendrickson supposes, then those conditions entail neither blameworthiness (BW) nor praiseworthiness (PW). Thus, I shall take Hendrickson’s 1 thesis (A) to be that responsibility entailing either BW or PW (BW/PW) can be separated from free will (but not responsibility per se). (shrink)

The resources and resource potential of the innovative component of nanoeconomics are analyzed. The factors of production – classical types of resources such as land, labor, capital and technology – are described. Ways of influencing the security resources of nanoeconomics within the innovation paradigm are evaluated. The purpose of the study is to identify the factor of nanoeconomics in the formation of resource security potential in the innovation paradigm. To achieve this goal, the following tasks were set: to (...) characterize the importance of the land resource as a factor in the potential of economic nanosystems; to highlight the importance of capital as a factor of nanoproduction and an indicator of the innovation paradigm; to determine the labor resource in the development of innovative nanosystems; to analyze the intellectual potential of nanoeconomic development of the innovation paradigm; to identify clusters of innovative nanopotential in the regions of countries with transition economies. Each resource is examined separately with the first analysis of a resource security assessment such as land. The other resource under consideration is labor. Demographic factors become decisive in describing the development of labor resources. The capital factor allows the formation of independent economic systems, when the state budget affects the possibility of developing science, education and health care. A number of methods were applied during the study: methods of induction and deduction (to assess the importance of the innovation paradigm for the development of nanoeconomics); system analysis and structural approach (to determine the aggregate state of production factors); method of comparing the quality of production factors in market economies and in developed countries; an observation method (for assessing the state of resources in different countries); method of cluster analysis (to determine the existence of innovation-territorial regions in countries with economies in transition). The analysis is carried out to identify the conditions of the impact of production factors on the innovative paradigm of nanoeconomics. It reveals theoretical approaches to the formation of nanoeconomics and its active development. As a result of the study of intellectual and resource potential of security, a cluster analysis was carried out to assess the conditions for the formation of innovation-territorial regions. This study allows to understand the role of production security factors in the formation of the innovation paradigm and the efficiency of the development of nanoeconomics. The way of providing the basis for the development of nanoeconomics in the form of efficient use of production factors is considered as a perspective. (shrink)

The subject of the study is the socio-cultural threats to the information security of Russian citizens associated with ChatGPT technologies (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, a machine-generated text response generator simulating a dialogue). The object of research − evaluation of the ratio of advantages and threats of generative language models based on "machine learning" in modern (2021-2023) scientific literature (journals HAC K1, K2 and Scopus Q1, Q2). The scientific novelty of the research lies in the culturological approach to the (...) analysis of threats to the security of Russian citizens associated with the use of ChatGPT as one of the technologies of "artificial intelligence". The formulation of the problem of the classical Turing test "to distinguish a person from a machine" is characterized as a scholastic abstraction, instead a more correct and productive approach is proposed: a socio-cultural assessment of the value (based on cultural axiology) of new computer technologies. The starting point of the analysis is the determination of socio-cultural value (or, conversely, damage) as a result of the use of generative language models based on machine learning. Further, the contribution and responsibility of various socio-cultural subjects of its creation and application are revealed − user, creator and developer. The result of the application of the proposed approach is the deconstruction of the discourse of the "philosophy of artificial intelligence" in terms of uncritical translation of developer declarations intended for marketing and attracting financing. Hypertrophied perception, precariously balancing on the edge of utopia and dystopia, is assessed as a risk of incorrect identification and ranking of threats to information security. Assumptions about the hypothetical "superweapon of psychological warfare" mask modern incidents of cross-border leakage of confidential data, the risks of being held accountable for publishing deliberately false information and illegal content as a result of using ChatGPT. National security measures are recommended, including restrictive measures and increasing the general civil culture of information security of users, as well as the orientation of domestic developments of solutions of this type on traditional values, socio-cultural identity and interests of Russian citizens. (shrink)

Economic insecurity is an endemic problem across the rich countries of the Global North. What is the solution? This paper compares and contrasts two major proposals: the conventional welfare state package of public services and regulations versus a basic income. By comparing and contrasting these systems in three different contexts – a “nightwatchman” context, a neoliberal context, and a social democratic context – and carefully modeling the monetary equivalence between them, we are able to provide a more precise and compelling (...) comparison of the two systems than has yet been accomplished. We evaluate the two systems on the basis of economic security as well as a number of other important criteria, including the economic well-being of oppressed groups, power, carbon emissions, the gender division of labor, free time, social stigma, and transformative potential. We find that without a welfare state background, services and regulations are generally preferable for most vulnerable groups. However, as the welfare state develops, into a neoliberal or a social democratic context, basic income becomes a generally superior option. (shrink)

This paper examines ethical issues involved in the mass marketing of securities to individuals. The marketing of products deemed “socially questionable” or “sinful” (like tobacco and alcohol) has long been recognized as posing special ethical challenges (Kotler, P. and S. Levy: 1971, Harvard Business Review 49, 74–80; Davidson, D. K: 1996, Selling Sin: The Marketing of Socially Unacceptable Products (Quorum Press, Westport). We contend that marketers should consider securities (i.e. common stock, options) in a similar vein, as a potentially dangerous (...) product. Given the inherent volatility of equity prices, responsible marketers need to exercise caution and restraint in promoting securities. We evaluate whether the NYSE’s current guidelines adequately encourage ethical marketing practices and deter unethical ones. Using recent examples of controversial brokerage advertisements, we expose weaknesses in the Exchange’s vague injunction that members not “mislead” reasonable people by making “exaggerated claims” in their communications. From a moral perspective, we find it troublesome that intentionality need not be present for a promotion to be considered misleading. Also problematic is the continued invocation of the reasonable person standard to judge the propriety of advertisements. We close with some thoughts on improving the quality of securities marketing. We suggest that the NYSE, in the interests of fostering higher ethical behavior among member marketers, may need to revive a marketing code of conduct prevalent on Wall Street in an earlier era. (shrink)

Strategic Environmental Assessment, as a support to strategic planning, is a starting point in the creation of a sustainable concept of managing waste that is based on the principles of a circular economy. The role of SEA is to guide the planning process towards the goal of securing the best effects in relation to the quality of the living environment and the socio-economic aspects of development. SEA is also an instrument that can be used when making optimal decisions about spatial (...) development, which further contributes to its importance and role in the planning process. The implementation of SEA allows developers to establish the benefits and implications of the proposed spatial changes, taking into account the capacity of the space to sustain the planned development, and to determine the degree of acceptability of the proposed spatial changes. This paper presents a specific method used for impact assessment in SEA for the Agro-Waste Management Plan for Oplenac Vineyard. The specificity of this method is that it combines specific goals, indicators and criteria for assessing the effect of planning solutions formulated in the simulated AWMP for Oplenac Vineyard using a semi-quantitative expert method. The results of the paper indicate the possibility of using GIS tools to increase objectivity in the expert evaluation of planning solutions, particularly in relation to a group of criteria for assessing the spatial dispersion of the impacts. This reduces the subjectivity that is characteristic of all expert methods. The graphical presentation of the results in GIS technology and the use of matrices and graphs to present the results makes them easier to understand and creates a good basis for making optimal decisions on future activities concerning the elimination of waste from wineries and viticulture. The research was carried out within the framework of the NoAW project, which is supported by the European Commission through the Horizon2020 research and innovation program. (shrink)