In this study, I explore the ways in which feminist family therapists encourage exploration of, resistance to, and collusion with, oppression. I explore qualitatively the critical dialogues, both inner, and with others, that feminist family therapists employ to address oppressive systems. My research questions are: a. How do family therapists who identify as feminist describe how their feminist identities and ideas about feminism have evolved over time? b. How do feminist family therapists report stories of their own resistance to gender-based oppression? c. How do feminist family therapists report stories of their own collusion with the oppression of others? And d. How do feminist family therapists encourage clients to examine oppression and collusion of oppression of others? I use tape-recorded, one-on-one interviews with a theoretical sample of self-identified feminist participants who have demonstrated rigorous attention to feminist inquiry and practice in the field of family therapy. Consistent with a contemporary grounded theory methodology, generation of theory is based on constructivist methods, which recognize that there are multiple coexisting realities and not one objective truth (Charmaz, 2000). By way of constructivist grounded theory analysis the following four categories emerged: (a) Actions and Strategies of a Feminist Family Therapist, (b) It's a Sensibility: The Development of a Feminist Identity, (c) Recognizing Oppression and Injustice: A Quest for Liberation and (d) Resisting: Exploring Why, How, and at the Risk of Which Consequences. / Ph. D.

Android malware collusion is a new threat model that occurs when multiple Android apps communicate in order to execute an attack. This threat model threatens all Android users' private information and system resource security. Although recent research has made advances in collusion detection and classification, security analysts still do not have robust tools which allow them to definitively identify colluding Android applications. Specifically, in order to determine whether an alert produced by a tool scanning for Android collusion is a true-positive or a false-positive, the analyst must perform manual analysis of the suspected apps, which is both time consuming and prone to human errors. In this thesis, we present a new approach to definitive Android collusion detection and confirmation by rendering inter-component communications between a set of potentially collusive Android applications. Inter-component communications (abbreviated to ICCs), are a feature of the Android framework that allows components from different applications to communicate with one another. Our approach allows Android security analysts to inspect all ICCs within a set of suspicious Android applications and subsequently identify collusive attacks which utilize ICCs. Furthermore, our approach also visualizes all potentially collusive data-flows within each component within a set of apps. This allows analysts to inspect, step-by-step, the the data-flows that are currently used by collusive attacks, or the data-flows that could be used for future collusive attacks. Our tool effectively visualizes the malicious and benign ICCs in sets of proof-of-concept and real-world colluding applications. We conducted a user study which revealed that our approach allows for accurate and efficient identification of true- and false-positive collusive ICCs while still maintaining usability. / Master of Science

In the field of multiagent systems, trust and reputation systems are intended to assist agents in finding trustworthy partners with whom to interact. Earlier work of ours identified in theory a number of security vulnerabilities in trust and reputation systems, weaknesses that might be exploited by malicious agents to bypass the protections offered by such systems. In this work, we begin by developing the TREET testbed, a simulation platform that allows for extensive evaluation and flexible experimentation with trust and reputation technologies. We use this testbed to experimentally validate the practicality and gravity of attacks against vulnerabilities. Of particular interest are attacks that are collusive in nature: groups of agents (coalitions) working together to improve their expected rewards. But the issue of coalitions is not unique to trust and reputation; rather, it cuts across a range of fields in multiagent systems and beyond. In some scenarios, coalitions may be unwanted or forbidden; in others they may be benign or even desirable. In this document, we propose a method for detecting coalitions and identifying coalition members, a capability that is likely to be valuable in many of the diverse fields where coalitions may be of interest. Our method makes use of clustering in benefit space (a high-dimensional space reflecting how agents benefit others in the system) in order to identify groups of agents who benefit similar sets of agents. A statistical technique is then used to identify which clusters contain coalitions. Experimentation using the TREET platform verifies the effectiveness of this approach. A series of enhancements to our method are also introduced, which improve the accuracy and robustness of the algorithm. To demonstrate how this broadly-applicable tool can be used to address domain-specific problems, we focus again on trust and reputation systems. We show how, by incorporating our work into one such system (the existing Beta Reputation System), we can provide resistance to collusion. We conclude with a detailed discussion of the value of our work for a wide range of environments, including a variety of multiagent systems and real-world settings.

Digital fingerprinting is a method by which a copyright owner can uniquely embed a buyer-dependent, inconspicuous serial number (representing the fingerprint) into every copy of digital data that is legally sold. The buyer of a legal copy is then deterred from distributing further copies, because the unique fingerprint can be used to trace back the origin of the piracy. The major challenge in fingerprinting is collusion, an attack in which a coalition of pirates compare several of their uniquely fingerprinted copies for the purpose of detecting and removing the fingerprints. The objectives of this work are two-fold. First, we investigate the need for robustness against large coalitions of pirates by introducing the concept of a malicious distributor that has been overlooked in prior work. A novel fingerprinting code that has superior codeword length in comparison to existing work under this novel malicious distributor scenario is developed. In addition, ideas presented in the proposed fingerprinting design can easily be applied to existing fingerprinting schemes, making them more robust to collusion attacks. Second, a new framework termed Joint Source Fingerprinting that integrates the processes of watermarking and codebook design is introduced. The need for this new paradigm is motivated by the fact that existing fingerprinting methods result in a perceptually undistorted multimedia after collusion is applied. In contrast, the new paradigm equates the process of collusion amongst a coalition of pirates, to degrading the perceptual characteristics, and hence commercial value of the multimedia in question. Thus by enforcing that the process of collusion diminishes the commercial value of the content, the pirates are deterred from attacking the fingerprints. A fingerprinting algorithm for video as well as an efficient means of broadcasting or distributing fingerprinted video is also presented. Simulation results are provided to verify our theoretical and empirical observations.

Complementary Roles of Connections and Performance in Political Selection in China Who becomes a top politician in China? We focus on provincial leaders and examine how their chance of being promoted depends on performance and connections with top politicians. We find a positive correlation between promotion and growth that is robustly stronger for connected provincial leaders than for unconnected ones. Pollution for Promotion This paper provides evidence on the impact of political incentives on the environment using the case of China's pollution. Guided by a simple career concerns model with the choice of dirty and clean technologies, I examine empirically how promotion incentives of provincial governors affect pollution and find that stronger career concerns increase pollution. Decentralization, Collusion and Coalmine Deaths This paper investigates how collusion between regulators and firms affects workplace safety using the case of China's coalmine deaths. We find that decentralization increases coalmine death because collusion is easier under decentralization. We also find that this increase in mortality is larger for the regulators with lower transaction costs. The Legacies of Forced Freedom: China's Treaty Ports This paper investigates the long-run development of China's treaty ports from the mid-18th century until today. I document the dynamic development paths of treaty ports and their neighbours in alternate phases of closedness and openness. I also provide suggestive evidence to understand the advantage of treaty ports in the long run. Weather Shocks, Sweet Potatoes and Peasant Revolts in Historical China I use data covering 267 prefectures over four centuries to investigate how weather shocks and the introduction of a drought-resistant crop affected peasant revolts. I find that droughts increased the likelihood of peasant revolts and the effect of droughts got mitigated by the adoption of sweet potatoes.

In the field of multiagent systems, trust and reputation systems are intended to assist agents in finding trustworthy partners with whom to interact. Earlier work of ours identified in theory a number of security vulnerabilities in trust and reputation systems, weaknesses that might be exploited by malicious agents to bypass the protections offered by such systems. In this work, we begin by developing the TREET testbed, a simulation platform that allows for extensive evaluation and flexible experimentation with trust and reputation technologies. We use this testbed to experimentally validate the practicality and gravity of attacks against vulnerabilities. Of particular interest are attacks that are collusive in nature: groups of agents (coalitions) working together to improve their expected rewards. But the issue of coalitions is not unique to trust and reputation; rather, it cuts across a range of fields in multiagent systems and beyond. In some scenarios, coalitions may be unwanted or forbidden; in others they may be benign or even desirable. In this document, we propose a method for detecting coalitions and identifying coalition members, a capability that is likely to be valuable in many of the diverse fields where coalitions may be of interest. Our method makes use of clustering in benefit space (a high-dimensional space reflecting how agents benefit others in the system) in order to identify groups of agents who benefit similar sets of agents. A statistical technique is then used to identify which clusters contain coalitions. Experimentation using the TREET platform verifies the effectiveness of this approach. A series of enhancements to our method are also introduced, which improve the accuracy and robustness of the algorithm. To demonstrate how this broadly-applicable tool can be used to address domain-specific problems, we focus again on trust and reputation systems. We show how, by incorporating our work into one such system (the existing Beta Reputation System), we can provide resistance to collusion. We conclude with a detailed discussion of the value of our work for a wide range of environments, including a variety of multiagent systems and real-world settings.

Background: The infiltration of the construction industry has been central for the emergence and expansion of organized crime internationally. Sweden is a country in transition, with the sharpest turn towards economic inequality in Western Europe in recent decades. A concern for a society in transition is the emergence of organized crime.Aims and method: This study aims to contribute to the knowledge of the emergence of organized crime, and provides a comprehensive literature review on the function of corruption in the organized crime infiltration of the construction industry. Results: Corruption was identified in the enforcement of cartels and the organization of unregistered labor. Organized crime targeted unions, politicians and administrators in urban planning, as well as the courts, the elections and the military.Conclusions: Organized crime groups were shown to exploit both regulation and its absence to expand their profits and power. Factors related to the emergence of organized crime included structural and cultural incentives for corruption, transition economies, discretionary power, and the question of agency. The findings were compared to the question of organized crime in a Swedish context and its involvement in the construction industry.

The South African Competition Commission has analysed most levels of the food supply chain by investigation of alleged anti-competitive behaviour by producers, input suppliers, storage companies, processors and retailers. The numbers of these cases include cartels and, to a lesser extent, restrictive vertical constraints and abuse of dominance position. Sexton (2012) states that the recent development in the agricultural market, where large companies are vertically integrating, renders the perfect competition model inappropriate. This brings doubt that the law based on perfect competition will work in oligopolistic markets. Despite the identified number of detected cartels in the grain industry, it might be possible that some cartels in other food chains are still undetected. Through the application of the market screening approach, the aim of this study is to establish whether the National Agricultural Marketing Council (“NAMC”) and the Competition Commission could have detected the bread cartel using secondary data in the absence of the information from the whistle-blower. As the first step, the study carried out a structural assessment of the bread industry. This assessment indicated that the bread market has a number of factors that may facilitate collusive behaviour. The study found that the history of information sharing played a crucial role for bakeries to coordinate their conduct. The second step was to conduct an in-depth behavioural assessment that focused on bread prices to see whether there has been a structural break in the period under investigation. The idea was to estimate the price equation of brown bread as a function of the SAFEX wheat price, petrol price (cost shifters), and 1 kg of maize meal (demand shifters). The study used the OLS to estimate three regressions using the data for the whole period and two sub-breaks (before the break point, and after the break point) to perform a Chow test. The question that the Chow test asked is: was there a structural break in March 2007, after the Competition Commission received the information from the whistle-blower? In other words, had the price of bread increased or decreased at a certain period without any changes in the demand or cost variable. The Null hypothesis states that there was no structural break, while the alternative hypothesis states that there was a structural break in March 2007. The Chow test result shows that at a 5 per cent significant level, the F-critical value is F_5, 90 = 2.68 and the F test statistics is 20.59 with a p value of 0.00. This indicates that we cannot reject the null hypothesis and conclude that a structural break did not occur in March 2007. The screening approached failed to prove the existence of cartel in the bread industry. Therefore, the study concludes that in the absence of the whistle-blower, it would not have been easy for the Competition Commission and the NAMC (2009) to detect a cartel by just using secondary data. This proves that screening alone cannot prove the existence of cartel without prior knowledge of the conduct and of the industry as a whole. Nevertheless, a market screening approach is important as it can be used as a warning mechanism to detect an emerging cartel, since it can flag potentially suspicious behaviour. Nevertheless, this calls for the policy makers to combine the scoping study by the Competition Commission and the monitoring of food prices by the NAMC, as this will provide the best enforcement tool in detecting cartel behaviour in the food industry. / Dissertation (MInst Agrar)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / tm2015 / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / MInst Agrar / Unrestricted

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(経済学) / 甲第21526号 / 経博第594号 / 新制||経||289(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院経済学研究科経済学専攻 / (主査)教授 関口 格, 准教授 菊谷 達弥, 教授 原 千秋 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Economics / Kyoto University / DGAM

The dissertation includes two projects. The first one studies the product market segmentation and output collusion within substitutes; the second one examines the effects of WIC program and peers on breastfeeding activities. In Chapter I, we extend the differentiated product model, first developed by Bowley (1924), by relaxing the assumption that each firm produces only one differentiated product. By doing so, we are able to analyze the potential for collusive market segmentation in a two stage decision framework, first in product space and second in output. We find that when firms cannot coordinate on output, the required discount factor that supports collusive market segmentation is strictly decreasing in product substitutability and is greater than partial output and full collusion. Overall we find that output collusion alone is easier to sustain than collusive product market segmentation. In Chapter II, we first use duration analysis techniques to estimate the effects of WIC participation on breastfeeding activities using a nationwide data. Income ineligible participants are excluded from the sample. The models with and without peer effects variables are both estimated. We find that the prenatal WIC participation status does not have significant effect on breastfeeding activities. Peer effects have significant positive effects on both partial and exclusive breastfeeding durations but not on breastfeeding initiation. The magnitude of the peer effects on each individual is different and depends on the individual’s propensity to breastfeed. The results on peer effects based on the full sample are consistent with the findings from restricted sample. Knowing more than five peers who breastfed increases the probability of initiating by 3.7% and the likelihood of breastfeeding at months 3 and 6 by more than 15%. It also increases the partial and exclusive breastfeeding durations by 9 and 3 weeks, respectively. The results suggest the presence of a social multiplier in breastfeeding. Any exogenous change in breastfeeding behavior due to policy interventions would result in an even greater change due to the bidirectional influences within peer groups. Peer effects play a more important role for breastfeeding duration than initiation.