Transgender law and politics may seem to have been nonexistent prior to the 21st century. This dissertation argues that the timeline of transgender progress should begin much earlier and the measure of success should be recalibrated. As early as 1955, states enacted legislation allowing transsexual persons to change their legal sex status. By the end of the 20th century, over half of America’s states had such statutes. I argue that these should be acknowledged as LGBT civil rights successes as significant as any other. Most early sexual orientation anti-discrimination laws omitted protections for trans people, based either on a belief that they were not attainable or that trans issues were not even a proper gay rights concern. Often engaging in direct confrontation, trans people in Minnesota demonstrated that that exclusion was not the only possible civil rights path, securing inclusion in local law in 1975 and in state law two decades later, while other states still maintained an exclusionary mindset. The lesson trans people learned was that if they were not included in such legislation from the outset, the likelihood of being added later was slim. They applied this knowledge to civil rights efforts at the state and federal levels. Gradually, more states did become inclusive, but not until 2007 did a federal proposal include trans-inclusive language. Paradoxically, the circumstances of its failure exacerbated fissures within the LGBT community but also brought most of the community together in favor of inclusion to a degree previously unimaginable.

1 Current Issues of Supplementary Protection Certificates for Medicinal Products in the Case Law of the European Court of Justice Abstract Supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) are a sui generis industrial property right. Under the conditions, which are explained in more detail in this thesis, they can be obtained for the active ingridients of certain products. The type of products eligible for SPC protection are, inter alia, medicinal products which are characterized by their social importance and therefore by the need to ensure their safety, efficacy and quality. Given that the process of providing these guarantees is both costly and time consuming and that the commercialization of the product is conditional on such guarantees, the period for which medicinal products can benefit from patent protection is therefore shortened. The aim of the SPCs is to compensate for this shortening by an additional period of protection in order to incentivise research that has a positive effect on human health and quality of life. This work analyzes the evolution of the case law of the Court of Justice with regard to an interpretative shift or clarification, in particular as regards the substantive conditions for obtaining a certificate and provisions pertaining to the term of the SPC as laid down in the SPC...

Predicting sales is an important step for many business processes. Several forecasting methods have been applied to uncountable different problems, however with no present research found in the area of renewable energy certificates. Thus, this study aims to examine the possibility of developing a model based on traded volumes of certificates, where a comparison between simpler and more complex models explores the general increased interest in machine learning models. Therefore, five different models are tested with monthly sales data: the statistical model Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average, the machine learning models Support Vector Regression and Extreme Gradient Boosting and further the neural networks Long Short-Term Memory and Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory. Extensive data preparation is operated by taking into account seasonality and trends where data transformations are applied in addition to feature engineering. To evaluate the models, non-aggregated monthly forecasts as well as aggregated predictions of two and three months are examined. The results show that it is feasible to model the sales volumes of renewable energy certificates. As expected, the models generally perform better when evaluated based on aggregated monthly predictions. Also, when considering both evaluation strategies, the Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average, Support Vector Regression and Extreme Gradient Boosting are the only models showing better performance compared to a baseline model. The proposed solution to enable smarter and more efficient trading decisions today is a combination of the aggregated two months and quarterly predictions of the Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average and Support Vector Regression models. Considering an expected expansion of relevant available data for the company, the recommendation for the future is to specifically further develop the machine learning models with an anticipation of improved performance and valuable feature importance insights.

Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs) are emerging as a promising approach to improving traffic safety and providing a wide range of wireless applications for drivers and passengers. To perform reliable and trusted vehicular communications, one prerequisite is to ensure a peer vehicle’s credibility by means of digital certificates validation from messages that are sent out by other vehicles. However, in vehicular communication systems, certificates validation is more time consuming than in traditional networks, due to the fact that each vehicle receives a large number of messages in a short period of time. Another issue that needs to be addressed is the unsuccessful delivery of information between vehicles and other entities on the road as a result of their high mobility rate. For these reasons, we need new solutions to accelerate the process of certificates validation. In this thesis, we propose a certificate revocation status validation scheme using the concept of clustering; based on data mining practices, which can meet the aforementioned requirements. We employ the technique of k -means clustering to boost the efficiency of certificates validation, thereby enhancing the security of a vehicular ad hoc network. Additionally, a comprehensive analysis of the security of the proposed scheme is presented. The analytical results demonstrate that this scheme can effectively improve the validation of certificates and thus secure the vehicular communication in vehicular networks.

Objectives To describe the creation of a multigenerational linked dataset with social mobility measures for South Carolina (SC), as an example for states in the South and other areas of the country. Methods Using unique identifiers, we linked birth certificates along the maternal line using SC birth certificate data from 1989 to 2014, and compared the subset of records for which linking was possible with two comparison groups on sociodemographic and birth outcome measures. We created four multi-generational social mobility measures using maternal education, paternal education, presence of paternal information, and a summary score incorporating the prior three measures plus payment source for births after 2004. We compared social mobility measures by race/ethnicity. Results Of the 1,366,288 singleton birth certificates in SC from 1989 to 2014, we linked 103,194, resulting in 61,229 unique three-generation units. Mothers and fathers were younger and had lower education, and low birth weight was more common, in the multigenerational linked dataset than in the two comparison groups. Based on the social mobility summary score, only 6.3% of White families were always disadvantaged, compared to 30.4% of Black families and 13.2% of Hispanic families. Moreover, 32.8% of White families were upwardly mobile and 39.1% of Black families were upwardly mobile, but only 29.9% of Hispanic families were upwardly mobile. Conclusions for Practice When states are able to link individuals, birth certificate data may be an excellent source for examining population-level relationships between social mobility and adverse birth outcomes. Due to its location in the Deep South, the multigenerational SC dataset may be particularly useful for understanding racial/ethnic difference in social mobility and birth outcomes.

Masters of Commerce / This paper uses 3 - month and 12 - month market Negotiable Certificates of ( I . Deposit (NCO) rates to test whether greater transparency by the South African Reserve Bank has reduced expectational errors in the money markets. It does so by comparing the relative differences (between the implied forward rates-as indicators of expected future spot rates-and the actual 'future'spot rates) between the period before greater transparency and the period after greater transparency. Empirical evidence for the sample period indicates that greater ransparency by the South African Reserve Bank co-incided with reduced expectational errors in the money markets. Thus, the implied forward rates after greater transparency may well have been better predictors of future spot rates than before greater transparency, although causality has not been proved.

El presente trabajo de investigación se encuentra basado en las buenas prácticas ambientales que son aplicadas en el sector turístico, en los alojamientos a nivel internacional presentando información para el caso peruano. En este se busca identificar las certificaciones ambientales nacionales e internacionales existentes que brindan reconocimiento a aquellos alojamientos que cumplen con los criterios establecidos de acuerdo a cada uno de ellos. Así mismo, con este trabajo se pretende conocer las buenas prácticas ambientales aplicadas en los alojamientos analizando los cuatro ejes por los que se encuentra compuesto. Estos son agua, energía, compras y manejo de residuos sólidos y dentro de cada uno de ellos se identificarán las medidas que son aplicadas para minimizar el impacto negativo que traen las operaciones de los alojamientos en el medio ambiente. Por último, se quiere dar a conocer los resultados que han sido generados en los alojamientos tras la implementación de buenas prácticas ambientales. Con la finalidad de conocer su aplicación nivel internacional y nacional. Para ello, se tomará como referencia fuentes secundarias de investigaciones pasadas en las cuales se han obtenido resultados cualitativos y cuantitativos. En estas se ha comprobado los beneficios generados al aplicar prácticas que reducen los impactos negativos al entorno natural. Identificar estos beneficios generados tanto para el alojamiento como para el ambiente, permitirá que aquellos establecimientos que no aplican buenas prácticas ambientales se sientan influencias y motivados para realizar implementación de acciones que reduzcan los impactos negativos en el entorno. / This research work is based on good environmental practices that are applied in the tourism sector, in accommodation at an international level, presenting information for the Peruvian case. This seeks to identify the existing national and international environmental certifications that provides recognition to those accommodations that meet the criteria established according to each of them. Likewise, this work aims to know the good environmental practices applied in the accommodation by analyzing the four axes by which it is composed. These are water, energy, purchases and solid waste management and within each one of them the measures that are applied are identified to minimize the negative impact that the operations of the accommodation have on the environment. Finally, we want to release the results that have been generated in the accommodations after the implementation of good environmental practices. In order to know its application at the international and national level. For this, secondary sources of past researches in which qualitative and quantitative results have been obtained will be taken as a reference. In these, the benefits generated by applying practices that reduce the negative impacts on the natural environment have been verified. By identifying these benefits generated both for the accommodation and for the environment, will allow those establishments that do not apply good environmental practices to feel influenced and motivated to carry out the implementation of actions that reduce the negative impacts on the environment. / Trabajo de investigación

Correct certificate revocation practices are essential to each public-key infrastructure. While there exist a number of protocols to achieve revocation in PKI systems, there has been very little work on the theory behind it: Which different types of revocation can be identified? What is the intended effect of a specific revocation type to the knowledge base of each entity? As a first step towards a methodology for the development of reliable models, we present a graph-based formalism for specification and reasoning about the distribution and revocation of public keys and certificates. The model is an abstract generalization of existing PKIs and distributed in nature; each entity can issue certificates for public keys that they have confidence in, and distribute or revoke these to and from other entities. Each entity has its own public-key base and can derive new knowledge by combining this knowledge with certificates signed with known keys. Each statement that is deduced or quoted within the system derives its support from original knowledge formed outside the system. When such original knowledge is removed, all statements that depended upon it are removed as well. Cyclic support is avoided through the use of support sets. We define different revocation reasons and show how they can be modelled as specific actions. Revocation by removal, by inactivation, and by negation are all included. By policy, negative statements are the strongest, and positive are the weakest. Collisions are avoided by removing the weaker statement and, when necessary, its support. Graph transformation rules are the chosen formalism. Rules are either interactive changes that can be applied by entities, or automatically applied deductions that keep the system sound and complete after the application of an interactive rule. We show that the proposed model is sound and complete with respect to our definition of a valid state. / <p>Report code: LIU-TEK-LIC-2006:1</p>

Today, security has become a growing concern for all internet users, where technology is developing faster than its security is implemented, which leads to insecure domains. In this thesis, we look at the reality of today’s domains and research if some categories of domains are safer than others and the reason behind it. The total amount of researched domains was 8080 divided into four categories; popular, categories, continents, and malicious. The analysis was made by looking closer at default protocols, cipher suites, certificate authorities (CAs), certificate classifications, page loading times, and vulnerabilities. Our result indicated that TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3 are the most commonly used protocol. The largest difference between the domains could be seen among the CAs, even though no definite reason for this could be found. The most popular cipher suite for popular, categories, and malicious belonged to TLS 1.3 meanwhile, continents had a cipher suite belonging to TLS 1.2. All four categories were vulnerable to at least five out of eight different types of attacks. The least commonly used certificate classification is EV certificates, while DV is the most commonly used. Through our data collection and analysis, we could conclude that all domains are not as safe as one might think, while the underlying security infrastructure of malicious domains might be better than anyone expects.

A vast majority of popular communication protocols for the internet employ the use of TLS (Transport Layer Security) to secure communication. As a result, there have been numerous efforts including the introduction of Certificate Transparency logs and Free Automated CAs to improve the SSL certificate ecosystem. Our work highlights the effectiveness of these efforts using the Certificate Transparency dataset as well as certificates collected via full IPv4 scans. We show that a large proportion of invalid certificates still exists and outline reasons why these certificates are invalid and where they are hosted. Moreover, we show that the incorrect use of template certificates has led to incorrect SCTs being embedded in the certificates. Taken together, our results emphasize continued involvement for the research community to improve the web's PKI ecosystem. / Master of Science / Security and Privacy for communication over the internet is increasingly important. TLS (Transport Layer Security) is the most popular protocol used to secure communications over the internet today. This work explores how this protocol has evolved over the past 9 years and how effective the measures undertaken by the community have been to improve the adherence to best practices in the wild. TLS employs the use of certificates to initialize secure communication and make sure the other party is indeed who they say they are. We show that while security has improved over the years, a majority of certificates are invalid and outline reasons why. We also observe the growth of Certificate Transparency logs and show how the use of template certificates cause unexpected issues. Taken together, our results emphasize a continued involvement for the research community to improve the TLS certificate ecosystem.