This dissertation traces military integration in Europe from the 1940s to the early 2000s in order to reveal the growth of a common European defence identity. Four factors characterize its approach. First, European defence identity is analyzed in relation to the broader path of European integration and its historical context, showing connections with key turning points in European integration, with the evolution of Franco-German relations and European-American relations, with the Cold War and subsequent Collapse of Communism, etc. Second, the dissertation applies theories of identity formation to guide the historical analysis. This approach draws attention, for example, to the important roles that borders and symbols played in European defence identity formation. Third, the thesis adopts a hybrid “top-down” and “bottom-up” approach; one side considers formal programs, policies, and institutions that promoted a European defence identity, while the other takes stock of public perceptions, actions by “rank and file” soldiers, etc. This dual approach helps to reveal more fully the complex, negotiated character of European defence identity formation. Finally, this thesis traces the growth of a European defence identity as a path of ideological and emotional change, growing commitment, and trust-building that spanned decades.

Major defence projects have a reputation of cost increases, time delays and in some cases not meeting user requirements. The aim of this study was to discover the factors which create the difficulties in UK defence acquisition projects. The dataset used in this research are seventeen, National Audit Office: Value for Money reports of major defence projects. Qualitative Software NVivo 8 was used to organise passages from the reports into categories of factors representing the defence acquisition process. A content analysis method was applied to the categories in order to highlight their quantitative and qualitative significance. A Transaction Cost Economics approach was taken to formulate the research propositions, which were tested using the qualitative content analysis.The fundamental transformation in defence procurement leads to post-contract asset specificity. There is a lack of substitute suppliers in defence procurement due to the high switching costs. There are three reasons given for this development in defence: (1) a legacy of the privatisation policy in the defence industry; (2) ownership transfers of specialised assets under the prime contracting approach and; (3) the transaction-specific investments by the MoD. The prime is able to take advantage of transaction-specific and relation-specific investments in the transaction for future contract tenders, due to the pre-contract asset specificity which results. This sequence of events is identified as the cause of the bilateral dependency condition in defence acquisition.Uncertainty and asset specificity, to a lesser extent, were identified as the major causes of transaction-costs in defence acquisition. These transaction-costs were given as the causes of failures in meeting the value for money criteria of defence projects. The MoD has responded, in recent time, to project failure through a governance trade-off from a traditional market-based transaction towards a bilateral governance approach. A focus of this bilateral governance approach is the application of Smart Acquisition principles and the IPT mechanism (joint MoD-Industry teams). In order to strengthen and support the IPT mechanism it is argued that a relational contracting approach should be taken. Traditional contracting approaches weaken the joint team working, whereas relational contracting applies partnership principles of better communication, cooperation and collaboration.

Alors que l'importance des infrastructures ne fait que croître, les systèmes de détections et de traitements des attaques sont majoritairement faits pour remonter un seul type des deux grands formats d'attaques : les attaques de masses. Les attaques ciblées quant à elle, bien que d'une grande dangerosité de par leur spécificité et des profondeurs atteintes dans les systèmes, restent traités avec une certaine inefficacité par les systèmes informatiques. Pourtant il y a des équipements remontants des informations et des alertes mais les opérateurs souvent peu entraînés à la gestion des incidents se retrouvent engloutis par la quantité d'informations qu'ils leur sont remontés. Le principe de cette thèse serait de fournir des outils permettant la formation des opérateurs et un meilleur traitement des informations remontées. On approcherait le problème de la manière suivante : on va tout d'abord émuler le système informatique d'une petite entreprise avec ces différents utilisateurs et ces services informatiques. Cela servira à générer les données d'un comportement normal et régulier du système mais également le comportement d'une attaque. Une fois le système est émulé et les données sont générées on va se servir de ces données pour simuler le système selon les besoins que nous avons de la simulation. Cette simulation sera plus légère que l'émulation et sera capable de passage à l'échelle et une modification plus dynamique de l'architecture et du comportement du système. Le but étant d'avoir un outil léger et adaptable capable de simuler différents comportements et conditions d'un système d'entreprise pour être utiliser pour faire des formations d'opérateurs et des tests d'utilisation plus complet d'outil de sécurité. Le tout sera supervisé par la console de contrôle de simulation qui va gérer la simulation mais également recevoir les informations de chaque composant et de la console opérateur. Le contrôle de la simulation inclue la capacité de créer des incidents et problèmes dans le système mais également de créer des attaques à l'encontre du système. / The concern over the security of the infrastructure of a company is only growing deeper and became a source of worries for companies. They use different systems to detect and deal with attack but those systems are usually made to detect one type only of the two main type of attack: attacks made to target the largest amount of people possible. Targeted attacks are rarer but more dangerous as it penetrates deep into a system and are very specifics. However the systems used to deal with it are proved of limited efficiency. Even when they send alerts and news to the operator, there is just to much information going along with it making the often ill-trained operators unable to react and overwhelm by massive information. The goal of this thesis is to create a tool that would help to form operator but also help to test more efficiently security systems. We'll approach the problem by first emulating the infrastructure and services of a small company with its different users and services. It will be use to create the data of the regular operations and interactions of a company during normal activity but also under attack. Once the system is emulated and we collected the necessary data, we will start to simulate the system according to what we need the simulation for. This simulation would need less resources than the emulation and will be scalable and capable to be dynamically change according to the needs. The aim is to have a light tool capable to simulate different behaviors and different type of realist simulation of a system to help improve the formation of operators and also test security devices more fully. The whole would be supervised by a console of control of the simulation who will receive the information of the simulated elements and the simulated operator console. It would have the capacity to create incidents and problems into the systems along with attacks.

Plants have an artillery to defend themselves. The plant surface is protected by water- resistant cuticle and mechanically strong cell wall. Then each plant cell has tools to recognize and to answer to a pathogen threat. In an extreme case, the answer is programmed cell death. Plant immunity is a complex process integrating these passive and active mechanisms in an effort to overstay a pathogen attack. When the plant cell is attacked by a pathogen, the metabolic resources are redirected towards immunity reaction which results in growth restriction. Both the immunity reaction and the growth are dependent on the efficient polarized secretion of various cargoes. Exocyst complex mediates tethering of a secretory vesicle with a target membrane and SNARE complex orchestrates the subsequent steps of vesicle docking and fusion. Exocyst and SNAREs are regulated by various proteins. In my work, I focused on identifying the exocyst interaction partners in plant immunity. In cooperation with my colleagues, we found the direct association between Qa-SNARE SYP121 involved in plant penetration resistance and EXO70B2 exocyst subunit. Moreover, we confirmed the relevance of their interaction for the formation of epidermal defensive structures, papillae and haustorial encasements in plant defence against non-adapted...

Local Self-Defence Militias as Counterinsurgents The Possibility, Willingness and Rationality of Selective Violence against Insurgents Autor: Jakob J. Gilg Submitted: 31.07.2019 Abstract How do local self-defence militias (LSDMs) influence violence against civilians in civil conflicts? Compared to other types of pro-government militias (PGMs), LSDMs are active in their home area. This results in abundant local information that can be used to identify and target insurgents and their supporters selectively. Furthermore, LSDMs are part of the local community, resulting in strong social ties, making indiscriminate violence against the community less likely. Finally, since LSDMs are dependent on popular support and cannot move on to a new area after violent acts, they are incentivised to retain local support by abstaining from civilian targeting. Therefore, I hypothesise that LSDMs are more likely to employ selective violence, and that their deployment decreases civilian fatalities in civil conflicts. To empirically test this claim in a global sample, I use 1) a logistic regression to assess the likelihood of selective violence of PGMs (H1), and 2) a negative binomial regression to evaluate the expected number of civilians killed by the government (H2). The results for the first hypothesis suggest an increased...

This thesis concerns the topic of exceeding the limits of self-defence and necessity and related legal consequences. Although the concepts of self-defence and necessity exist also in other legal branches, this thesis is focused primarily on criminal law. The aim is to define the concept of excess of the limits of self-defence and necessity, including the individual types of excess, and to provide a comprehensive overview of both general and special legal consequences that can arise in case of an excess. Furthermore, this thesis strives to answer the question whether the current Criminal Code allows for all the specific circumstances of cases in which the defendant fulfils an offence definition while exceeding the limits of self-defence or necessity to be duly taken into account. First, this thesis deals generally with the topic of defences and the concept of self-defence and necessity and then analyses in detail the limits and conditions of these concepts as this matter is closely connected with the topic of excess. The crucial parts of the thesis are part three and four. The third part focuses on defining the concept of excess and its characteristics, analysing the fault element of an excess and describing the individual types of excess of self- defence and necessity limits. The fourth part deals...

Defence lawyer in the criminal proceedings Abstract The defending lawyer is an important institution in criminal law. With this institution a basic principal can be guaranteed, the right of defense. This master's degree thesis is about the defending lawyer in criminal trials in the Czech Republic and Switzerland, its similarities and differences. It consists of an introduction, a body consisting of 7 chapters and a conclusion. The first chapter deals with the historical development of this institution on Czech territory from the 18th century until the present time. It especially emphasizes the effect of historical events on modifications and on the practical observance of written law. The next chapter defines the term defending lawyer under Czech law and explains how someone can become a defending lawyer. It specifies how a defending lawyer should conduct the defense case and explains the differences between elected and nominated lawyers. The following chapters analyse the rights and obligations of lawyers and methods of legal defense. Furthermore, they try to examine the importance and necessity of a defending lawyer in a criminal trial. On the other hand, they show the limitations of defense lawyers and their tactics. Additionally, they examine what disciplinary options are available e.g. to authorities...

The term and legal consequences of exceeding the limits of extreme necessity and necessary defence Abstract This thesis deals with the concept and legal consequences of exceeding the limits of extreme necessity and necessary defence, i.e. two conditions precluding the illegality of an act, which can be found in Chapter III of the current Criminal Code. Those conditions preclude the illegality of an act that would normally be illegal, because an act under those conditions is generally desirable in order to defend the interests protected by the Criminal Code. With the absence of illegality, acts under one of the conditions precluding illegality do not at all result in the commission of a criminal offence, which in case of extreme necessity and necessary defence, allow people to defend themselves at times when the state does not provide them protection against a certain danger or attack. However, if the statutory limits of these conditions precluding illegality are exceeded, the illegality will not be eliminated and a criminal offence will be committed. The main purpose of this thesis is to analyse the Czech legislation related to extreme necessity and necessary defence in terms of its limits. In particular, it aims to reveal the shortcomings of the legislation and offer solutions. The goals and structure of...

Social engineering has been an extremely serious security threat for several years, and the number of social engineering attacks that have been executed, the majority of which have been successful, has been steadily increasing in rapid succession. This increase can be attributed to numerous factors, such as a general increase in the accessibility and affordability of networking services and sites. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has also led to an increase in the number of attacks that have been executed and has also contributed to social engineering attacks becoming more successful than ever, due to the fear and anxiety that has been become a prevalent issue due to the pandemic. While social engineering is still a detrimental issue to cyber security infrastructure and corporations everywhere no one solution can be implemented, either through the use of hardware or software, that can prevent social engineering attacks from occurring. In order to aid everyday users in gaining a better understanding and to inform them about social engineering, a set of research questions are proposed, where we seek to highlight modern social engineering attacks, present both scientific and practical defence strategies and determine how aware non-IT students are about social engineering attacks. To answer these questions, a literature survey is performed along with a case study, where we seek to gain a deeper insight into the understanding and awareness that both non-IT students and IT experts have about social engineering attacks, techniques and defense strategies. The results of this research project demonstrated that there are a number of practical solutions offered in both state-of-the-art and state-of-the-practice literature that can be used to counter various social engineering attack methods. Additionally, it seems that IT-experts seem to implement some form of these prevention methods in real life. Additionally, the study shows that generally, non-IT students are quite aware about social engineering attacks, but could still benefit from learning about the different mitigation strategies that are available.

Plants have an artillery to defend themselves. The plant surface is protected by water- resistant cuticle and mechanically strong cell wall. Then each plant cell has tools to recognize and to answer to a pathogen threat. In an extreme case, the answer is programmed cell death. Plant immunity is a complex process integrating these passive and active mechanisms in an effort to overstay a pathogen attack. When the plant cell is attacked by a pathogen, the metabolic resources are redirected towards immunity reaction which results in growth restriction. Both the immunity reaction and the growth are dependent on the efficient polarized secretion of various cargoes. Exocyst complex mediates tethering of a secretory vesicle with a target membrane and SNARE complex orchestrates the subsequent steps of vesicle docking and fusion. Exocyst and SNAREs are regulated by various proteins. In my work, I focused on identifying the exocyst interaction partners in plant immunity. In cooperation with my colleagues, we found the direct association between Qa-SNARE SYP121 involved in plant penetration resistance and EXO70B2 exocyst subunit. Moreover, we confirmed the relevance of their interaction for the formation of epidermal defensive structures, papillae and haustorial encasements in plant defence against non-adapted...