Den 7 oktober 2001 anföll en koalition ledd av USA, Afghanistan för att döda eller tillfångata ledare och medlemmar av terrornätverket Al-Qaeda som skyddades av talibanregimen som styrde i landet. Sedan 2006 har Sverige lett återuppbygnadsprojektet vid PRT Mazar-e Sharif. En av de mest inflytelserika teoretikerna inom upprorsbekämpning (COIN) är den franske officeren David Galula som i mitten av 1900-talet formulerade sin teori om upprorsbekämpning och vikten av att skaffa sig civilbefolkningens stöd för att genomföra en lyckad COIN-operation. Studien använder sig av Galulas teori om COIN och hans åtta punkter som analysverktyg vid studien om den svenska insatsen i Afghanistan. Av studien framgår att den svenska insatsen skiljer sig mot Galulas teori på flera punkter. Studien visar att en av orsakerna kan vara att Sverige inte genomför COIN-operationen själv utan som en del av ISAF. / On the 7th October 2001, a coalition led by the USA attacked Afghanistan in in order to killor capture leaders and members of the terror network Al-Queda which were under theprotection of the Taliban regime who at the time controlled Afghanistan. Sweden has beenin charge of the reconstruction program in Mazar-e Sharif since 2006.One of the most influential theorist with in the field of counterinsurgency (COIN) is theFrench army officer David Galula who formed his theory for counterinsurgency in the mid-20th century. In his theory Galula argued that the support of the local population was thekey to a successful COIN-campaign.This study uses Galulas eight points as a mean to analyze the Swedish involvement inAfghanistan.The study show that the Swedish involvement differs on several counts from Galulas theory.The study show that one possible explanation could be that Sweden isn’t preforming aCOIN-campaign alone but as a part of ISAF.

Cryptography allows us to do magical things ranging from private communication over a public channel to securely evaluating functions among distrusting parties. For the real-world implementation of these tasks, efficiency is usually one of the most desirable objectives. In this work, we advance our understanding of efficient cryptographic constructions on several fronts.<div><br></div><div>Non-malleable codes are a natural generalization of error-correcting codes. It provides a weaker yet meaningful security guarantee when the adversary may tamper with the codeword such that error-correcting is impossible. Intuitively, it guarantees that the tampered codeword either encodes the original message or an unrelated one. This line of research aims to construct non-malleable codes with a high rate against sophisticated tampering families. In this work, we present two results. The first one is an explicit rate1 construction against all tampering functions with a small locality. Second, we present a rate-1/3 construction for three-split-state tampering and two-lookahead tampering.</div><div><br></div><div>In multiparty computation, fair computation asks for the most robust security, namely, guaranteed output delivery. That is, either all parties receive the output of the protocol, or no party does. By relying on oblivious transfer, we know how to construct MPC protocols with optimal fairness. For a long time, however, we do not know if one can base optimal fair protocol on weaker assumptions such as one-way functions. Typically, symmetric-key primitives (e.g., one-way functions) are much faster than public-key primitives (e.g., oblivious transfer). Hence, understanding whether one-way functions enable optimal fair protocols has a significant impact on the efficiency of such protocols. This work shows that it is impossible to construct optimal fair protocols with only black-box uses one-way functions. We also rule out constructions based on public-key encryptions and f-hybrids, where f is any incomplete function.</div><div><br></div><div>Collective coin-tossing considers a coin-tossing protocol among n parties. A Byzantine adversary may adaptively corrupt parties to bias the output of the protocol. The security ε is defined as how much the adversary can change the expected output of the protocol. In this work, we consider the setting where an adversary corrupts at most one party. 10 Given a target security ε, we wish to understand the minimum number of parties n required to achieve ε-security. In this work, we prove a tight bound on the optimal security. In particular, we show that the insecurity of the well-known threshold protocol is at most two times the optimal achievable security. </div>

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This thesis explores organizational features, which facilitate counterinsurgency operations on a company level. The framework used is the infantry company. Two factors were found through literature studies to be extra important for conducting successful counterinsurgency operations: intelligence and presence. Regarding intelligence, the results show beneficial effects from organizing a company level intelligence cell. The recommended size is three individuals. The next factor, presence, originates from the concept of maintaining a persistent presence as opposed to conducting raids in the assigned area of operations. Here, a force structure of four subordinates at both company and platoon level was found to be effective. Further, a Swedish and an Austrian European Union Battlegroup company was studied and compared to each other from the previously found aspects. Next, the two companies receive suggestions for how to reorganize themselves with the already existing personnel and equipment available. In the final part, the thesis discusses the structural rigidity of military organizations evident in the lack of organizational adaption to counterinsurgency even though such operations have been conducted in the past, present and most certainly will be a part of the future. / <p>Erasmus</p><p>Received award for best thesis.</p>

Thesis advisor: Vyacheslav Fos / In the first essay, I examine the role of cross-listings in the digital token marketplace ecosystem. Using a unique set of publicly available and hand-collected data from 3,625 tokens traded in 108 marketplaces, I find significant increases in price and trading activity around the date of a token’s first cross-listing. Tokens earn a 49% raw cumulative return in the two weeks around the cross-listing date. Global token-trading volume is almost 50 times higher after cross-listing. Using the uniquely heterogeneous characteristics of token marketplaces, I am able to identify specific value-creation channels. I provide the first evidence supporting value creation through network externalities proposed by recent token-valuation models. Consistent with equity cross-listing theory, I find higher returns for cross-listings that reduce market segmentation and improve information production. In the second essay, we analyze a dataset of 4,003 executed and planned ICOs, which raised a total of $12 billion in capital, nearly all since January 2017. We find evidence of significant ICO underpricing, with average returns of 179% from the ICO price to the first day’s opening market price, over a holding period that averages just 16 days. After trading begins, tokens continue to appreciate in price, generating average buy-and-hold abnormal returns of 48% in the first 30 trading days. We also study the determinants of ICO underpricing and relate cryptocurrency prices to Twitter followers and activity. In the third essay, I examine reputation building by activist hedge funds and document two new findings with regard to hostile activism. First, there is evidence of a permanent reputation effect to hostile activism. Activist hedge funds that have engaged in hostile tactics, receive on average a 3% higher CAR [-10,+10] on their subsequent non-hostile campaigns, compared to hedge funds that have never engaged in hostile tactics. This abnormal return is positively correlated with the level of hostile reputation of the campaigning hedge fund. Second, I find that activist hedge funds with more hostile reputation modify their non-hostile activism style to engage “hostile-like” targets and pursue “hostile-like” objectives, but withhold the use of hostile tactics. These findings imply that hedge funds are able to build reputation using their past engagement tactics and that market participants value such reputation as evidenced by the higher announcement return observed in their targets. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Finance.

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1 Legal Aspects of Initial Coin Offering Abstract The thesis deals with Initial Coin Offering (ICO) phenomenon. The Initial Coin Offering is a type of funding using cryptocurrencies, which the current legal literature describes as tokens. The thesis has a goal of describing the basics of cryptocurrencies functionality, the explanation of Initial Coin Offering phenomenon and the legal classification of cryptocurrencies emitted in an ICO. The fother parts of the thesis are dedicated to the comparison of Initial Coin Offering and Initial Public Offering with a special focus on the different economic motivation behind both phenomena. In the beginning the thesis describes the cryptocurrency basics such as what is blockchain, wallet and the difference between coins and tokens. Thesis then contains the descriptions of ICO phases, with a focus on the division of ICO on two parts, the public phase in which the retail investors take part, and the pre-sale phase in which the big investors take part. The next section contains the most important declarations and notices concerning ICO and cryptocurrencies, published by the regulatory bodies with a special focus on ESMA, FINMA and SEC. The description of the regulatory framework in the world is followed by the largest section of the thesis, which is dedicated to the...

La détermination de la tenue mécanique de points soudés est un enjeu industriel important, eten particulier dans le cas d'aciers à Très Haute Résistance. Actuellement, l'essai de tractionen croix est l'essai mécanique le plus répandu caractérisant la tenue des points soudés.Toutefois, l'étude de l'influence des différentes zones constituant le point soudé sur la tenueest difficile en se basant sur cet essai.Un essai d'enfoncement de coin a été développé afin de caractériser les ruptures interfacialesdes points soudés. Une section transverse d'un point soudé est observée tandis qu'un coin estinséré entre les deux tôles soudés. Une caméra CCD enregistre l'observation de lapropagation de la fissure.Le pliage limité des tôles durant la fissuration rend efficace la classification des différentspoints soudés par l'énergie totale dissipée par unité de surface rompue. De plus, la mesure insitu de l'angle d'ouverture de fissure caractérise la fissuration stable de la zone fondue. Dessimulations par éléments finis de l'essai sont conduites afin d'estimer un lien entre cesmesures et la rupture du matériau, modélisée par des zones cohésives.La rupture interfaciale de points soudés d'aciers DP et TRIP a été étudiée. Les mesuresexpérimentales permettent d'estimer les paramètres de modèles cohésifs représentatifs de larupture de la zone fondue, constituant des données fiables susceptibles d'être utilisées danstoute simulation numérique du comportement du point soudé.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1985.

This thesis examines the application of Digital Signal Processing (DSP) techniques, and specifically Wavelets, to the field of automatic coin recognition. The aim is to utilise DSP techniques to exploit information that is contained within time domain signals representing coins, which can not be accessed by other means. Attention is also given to the power requirement of possible solutions, with a low power solution being a secondary aim, as the solutions are targeted for use in a line-powered payphone. An examination of existing coin recognition techniques is presented, for which an improved but basic DSP coin recognition scheme using peak and trough location, is achieved. This is then improved using more advanced DSP techniques to access previously unavailable information contained within the signals. The advanced DSP techniques are developed into an integrated framework for automatic coin recognition. The framework is used to identify a single Wavelet solution that supplies a DSP representation of a set of coins. The representations of different coin types exist within a region of n-dimensional Euclidean space, which the framework attempts to locate uniquely for each coin type. To enable the framework to operate successfully, a key feature presented is the resampling of the waveforms input into the framework, to normalise any temporal variations in the input data. The location of the single Wavelet for analysis can not be achieved analytically and so is obtained using a novel Data Mining solution to search a Wavelet dictionary for possible solutions. This thesis proves that utilisation of the time localisation properties of the Discrete Wavelet Transform is possible when taken together with a distance metric strategy. Appropriate results are presented to verify the performance of the Wavelet solutions provided by the framework, especially in respect of counteracting fraudulent coins in the recognition process. As an overall validation of the research solution, an emulation of the coin recognition system was produced that could validate coins in real time, this is also documented. Both the hardware and software components of the integrated framework which have been developed, are fully modular and hold significant potential for expansion and integration into newer, more powerful cost effective coin recognition systems.