"On the modern web, many sites have third party content, be it through maps, embedded objects, ads, or through other types. Users pay little attention to the source of this content since it is such a common occurrence. Unfortunately, this content can be an avenue for third parties to discover private information about the user. Previous work has found these types of leaks in social networking sites. By logging headers during the usage of 120 sites across 12 major categories, we were able to find leakage of a user’s private information occurring on many other types of popular web sites. We found leakage on 75% of the sites we looked at and at least one instance in each of the categories. Based on the leaks we found, we propose a classification of the types of leakage that can occur via the HTTP header and use this system to analyze our results."

Past research has demonstrated that people prefer donating to a single identified donation recipient rather than abstractly presented donation recipients (i.e., the identifiable victim effect). The current study applies this conventional wisdom to cause-related marketing (CRM) advertising campaigns. The results show that the identifiable victim effect might not always be powerful within CRM advertising campaigns. Specifically, an advertisement with message evidence having statistical information about donation recipients is more effective for the people who possess an independent self-construal level. In contrast, a CRM ad with anecdotal message evidence about an identifiable donation recipient is effective for the people with an interdependent self-construal level. Theoretical and practical implications and directions for future research are discussed. / text

Antalet organdonatorer i Sverige räcker inte för att täcka behovet för dem som är i behov av organtransplantation. För att kunna bli organdonator krävs att vården vet om den avlidnes vilja. Det säkraste sättet att meddela sin vilja är genom donationsregister. Denna uppsats beskriver en förregistrerad experimentell mellangruppstudie som undersökte om deltagarnas (N = 348) intention till att registrera sig som organdonator påverkas av att få information om en person som är i behov av ett organ, jämfört med statistisk information. Dessutom undersöktes om intentionen påverkas av om det identifierade offret framställs som oskyldig eller icke-oskyldig. Datainsamlingen skedde via pappersenkäter. De mått som användes för intention att registrera sig som organdonator var dels självskattad intention, dels ett beteendemått där deltagarna fick svara på om de ville ha mer information. Resultaten av analysen av datan visade varken stöd för att ett oskyldigt identifierat offer skulle påverka deltagare till högre intention, eller att ett icke-oskyldigt identifierat offer skulle påverka deltagare till lägre intention. Någon signifikant skillnad fanns inte mellan grupperna för något av måtten. Studien gjordes inom ett område som inte är välbeforskat och mer forskning behövs för att kunna dra säkra slutsatser av resultatet. / The number of organ donors in Sweden is not enough to support the demand for those in need of organ transplants. To be able to become an organ donor the health services needs to know the will of the deceased. The surest way to announce one's will is through a donation register. This essay describes a pre-registered experimental between-group study that examined whether the participants’ (N = 348) intention to register as an organ donor is affected by receiving information about a person who is in need of an organ, compared with statistical information. In addition, it was examined whether the intention is affected by whether the identified are presented as innocent or non-innocent. Data gathering was done via paper surveys. The measures used for intention to register as an organ donor were partly a self-assessed intention, and partly a behavioral measure where the participants were to answer if they wanted more information. The results of the analysis of data neither supported that presentation of an innocent identified victim would influence participants to higher intention, nor that a non-innocently identified victim would influence participants to lower intention. There was no significant difference between the groups for any of the measures. The study was conducted in a field that is not well researched. More research is needed to be able to draw any absolute conclusions from the results.

Accounting for goodwill and identifiable intangibles is one of the most controversial issues in financial reporting. It has been on the agenda of the Australian Accounting Standards Board, the US, UK, and the International Accounting Standards Boards, and the Full High Court of Australia. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has also placed accounting for intangibles in its Media Releases directed at specific companies. Evidence suggests that the materiality of goodwill and identifiable intangible assets in corporate statements of financial position for a large number of companies is the reason for the considerable attention given to goodwill and identifiable intangibles. The present study has two objectives. First, it analyses the Australian market perception of goodwill and identifiable intangibles as assets in the determination of the market valuation of companies. Second, it investigates whether the market perceives goodwill and identifiable intangibles as wasting resources when valuing Australian firms. In order to achieve these objectives, the analysis initially develops and estimates a model (the asset-based model) that uses financial position statement items to explain the market value of companies' equity. This model examines the association between reported goodwill and identifiable intangible asset values and companies' market values. Given Ohlson's (1993) argument that companies' market value might be better explained by a model that includes a stock concept of value and a flow concept of earnings, a second model (the asset and income-based model) that incorporates an income variable into the initial model, is then developed and estimated. This model examines the association between the goodwill and identifiable intangible amortisation expense and companies' market values. Evidence suggests that there is a statistically significant negative association between equity market values and write-offs of goodwill, confirming the market perception of write-offs of goodwill as a wasting resource when valuing companies. Evidence also suggests that there is a statistically significant negative association between equity market values and write-offs of identifiable intangibles, at least for the total sample of the present study, providing limited evidence of the market perception of identifiable intangibles as wasting resources when valuing companies. However, the negative and inconsistently significant association between equity market values and write-offs of identifiable intangibles on an annual basis suggests that the relationship may be more complex than traditionally analysed / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Insider threat by employees in organizations is a problematic issue in today’s fast-paced, internet-driven society. Gone are the days when securing the perimeter of one’s network protected their business. Security threats are now mobile, and employees have the ability to share sensitive business data with hundreds of people instantaneously from mobile devices. While prior research has addressed social networking topics such as trust in relation to information systems, the use of social networking sites, social networking security, and social networking sharing, there is a lack of research in the mindfulness of users who spill sensitive data contained within images posted on social networking sites (SNS). The author seeks to provide an understanding of how non-malicious spillage through images relates to the mindfulness of employees, who are also deemed insiders. Specifically, it explores the relationships between the following variables: mindfulness, proprietary information spillage, and spillage of personally identifiable information (PII). A quasi-experimental study was designed, which was correlational in nature. Individuals were the unit of analysis. A sample population of business managers with SNS accounts were studied. A series of video vignettes were used to measure mindfulness. Surveys were used as a tool to collect and analyze data. There was a positive correlation between non-malicious spillage of sensitive business, both personally identifiable information and proprietary data, and a lack of mindfulness.

Without a valid assessment of accuracy there is a risk of data users coming to incorrect conclusions or making bad decision based on inaccurate data. This dissertation proposes a theoretical method for developing data-accuracy metrics specific for any given person-centric integrated system and how a data analyst can use these metrics to estimate the overall accuracy of person-centric data. Estimating the accuracy of Personal Identifiable Information (PII) creates a corresponding need to model and formalize PII for both the real-world and electronic data, in a way that supports rigorous reasoning relative to real-world facts, expert opinions, and aggregate knowledge. This research provides such a foundation by introducing a temporal first-order logic language (FOL), called Person Data First-order Logic (PDFOL). With its syntax and semantics formalized, PDFOL provides a mechanism for expressing data- accuracy metrics, computing measurements using these metrics on person-centric databases, and comparing those measurements with expected values from real-world populations. Specifically, it enables data analysts to model person attributes and inter-person relations from real-world population or database representations of such, as well as real-world facts, expert opinions, and aggregate knowledge. PDFOL builds on existing first-order logics with the addition of temporal predicated based on time intervals, aggregate functions, and tuple-set comparison operators. It adapts and extends the traditional aggregate functions in three ways: a) allowing any arbitrary number free variables in function statement, b) adding groupings, and c) defining new aggregate function. These features allow PDFOL to model person-centric databases, enabling formal and efficient reason about their accuracy. This dissertation also explains how data analysts can use PDFOL statements to formalize and develop formal accuracy metrics specific to a person-centric database, especially if it is an integrated person- centric database, which in turn can then be used to assess the accuracy of a database. Data analysts apply these metrics to person-centric data to compute the quality-assessment measurements, YD. After that, they use statistical methods to compare these measurements with the real-world measurements, YR. Compare YD and YR with the hypothesis that they should be very similar, if the person-centric data is an accurate and complete representations of the real-world population. Finally, I show that estimated accuracy using metrics based on PDFOL can be good predictors of database accuracy. Specifically, I evaluated the performance of selected accuracy metrics by applying them to a person-centric database, mutating the database in various ways to degrade its accuracy, and the re-apply the metrics to see if they reflect the expected degradation. This research will help data analyst to develop an accuracy metrics specific to their person-centric data. In addition, PDFOL can provide a foundation for future methods for reasoning about other quality dimensions of PII.

Law firms maintain and store voluminous amounts of highly confidential and proprietary data, such as attorney-client privileged information, intellectual properties, financials, trade secrets, personal, and other sensitive information. There is an ethical obligation to protect law firm client data from unauthorized access. Security breaches jeopardize the reputation of the law firm and could have a substantial financial impact if these confidential data are compromised. Information security policies describe the security goals of a law firm and the acceptable actions and uses of law firm information resources. In this dissertation investigation, the author examined the problem of whether information security policies assist with preventing unauthorized parties from accessing law firm confidential and sensitive information. In 2005, Doherty and Fulford performed an exploratory analysis of security policies and security breach incidents that highlighted the need for research with different target populations. This investigation advanced Doherty and Fulford's research by targeting information security policies and security breach incidents in law firms. The purpose of this dissertation investigation was to determine whether there is a correlation between the timing of security policy development (proactive versus reactive policy development) and the frequency and severity of security breach incidents in law firms of varying sizes. Outcomes of this investigation correlated with Doherty and Fulford's general findings of no evidence of statistically significant relationships between the existence of a written information security policy and the frequency and severity of security breach incidents within law firms. There was also a weak relationship between infrequency of information security policy updates and increase of theft resources. Results demonstrated that, generally, written information security policies in law firms were not created in response to a security breach incident. These findings suggest that information security policies generally are proactively developed by law firms. Important contributions to the body of knowledge from this analysis included the effectiveness of information security policies in reducing the number of computer security breach incidents of law firms, an under represented population, in the information assurance field. Also, the analysis showed the necessity for law firms to become more immersed in state security breach notification law requirements.

The first three papers of this Ph.D. thesis experimentally study the preferences of individuals making cross-border charitable donations. In Is Foreign Aid Paternalistic? (with Anna Breman and Felix Masiye) subjects choose whether to make a monetary or a tied transfer (mosquito nets) to an anonymous household in Zambia. The mean donation of mosquito nets differs significantly from zero, and paternalistic donors constitute a higher share of the sample than do purely altruistic donors. The second paper, Corruption and the Case for Tied Aid (with Anna Breman), compares the willingness to give money to Zambia's national health budget (CBoH) with the willingness to donate mosquito nets to a health-care clinic in Lusaka. Donors clearly prefer tied aid to untied program aid. Exit questionnaires suggest the reason to be a fear of corruption and misallocation at the CBoH. In Altruism without Borders? (with Anna Breman), we study whether the willingness to give increase with the information given about the recipients. We find no significant effect of identification on donations. Women and Informality: Evidence from Senegal, the fourth paper (with Elena Bardasi), uses household survey data to study women’s work and gender wage gaps in the formal and informal sector in Dakar. Multinomial logit analysis reveals that women are 3-4 times less likely to work formally rather than informally. Wage regressions reveal that little schooling, for instance, explains a considerable part of the gender wage gap. In the informal sector, however, the wage gap between men and women remains at 28%.    The fifth paper, Does Innovation Pay? A Study of the Pharmaceutical Product Cycle, examines how a drug’s life cycle depends on its degree of therapeutic innovation. All New Chemical Entities introduced in Sweden between 1987 and 2000 are rated into one of three innovation classes: A (important gains); B (modest gains); and C (little gains). Over a 15-year life cycle, the average class A drug raises 15% higher revenues than B drugs and 114% higher revenues than C drugs. But yearly class A and C sales differences are rarely significant. When comparing innovative (A and B pooled) and imitative (C) drugs, 15-year life cycle revenues of innovative drugs exceed those of imitative drugs by 100%. This sales difference is significant in 19 out of 20 years after launch. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan i Stockholm, 2008 Sammanfattning jämte 5 uppsatser

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:27:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2006-07-24Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:35:20Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 takiy_nh_me_ilha.pdf: 1452657 bytes, checksum: d8d3e6894e199ce5407ce0e06ae03261 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Este trabalho procura auxiliar determinadas ferramentas da Gestão da Qualidade e alguns procedimentos em Engenharia de Produção. Baseado no desafio e na competitividade industrial que é estimulado pela evolução contínua de novas tecnologias, que busca o desenvolvimento e inovação constante de softwares aplicativos. Utilizando-se de técnicas tradicionais de apuração de custos de produção para garantir a lucratividade e qualidade de fabricação, procedeu-se ao estudo e ao entendimento de processos de fabricação e o desenvolvimento do sistema computacional, com a finalidade de armazenar dados e informações, para apurar o custo real de fabricação e poder determinar, com agilidade e precisão, preços de venda competitivos. O principal problema identificado diz respeito às decisões questionáveis na questão da formação de preços de venda de produtos, a partir da sua produção, que são tomadas através de dados e informações históricas de custos de fabricação coletadas informalmente e sem critérios específicos. Dessa forma, justifica-se a informatização e automatização dos procedimentos de controle de custeios, como beneficio às empresas de manufatura, minimizando o esforço de apuração e a propagação de erros em cálculos para a composição dos preços. Conclui-se que a implementação deste controle informatizado agrega valores à empresa, pelo beneficio... / This work tries to aid certain tools of the Administration of the Quality and some procedures in Engineering of Production. Based on the challenge and in the industrial competitiveness that is stimulated by the continuous evolution of new technologies, that looks for the development and constant innovation of softwares applications. Being used of traditional techniques of examination of costs production to guarantee the quality of lucrativity and production, it was proceeded to the study and the understanding of production processes and the development of the computacional system, with the purpose of storing data and information, to hurry the real cost of production and to determine, with agility and precision, competitive sale prices. The main identified problem says respect to the questionable decisions in the subject of the formation of prices of sale of products, starting from its production, that are taken through data and historical information of costs of production collected informally and without specific approaches. In that way, it is justified the informatization and automation of the procedures of control of costings, as I benefit the manufacture companies, minimizing the examination effort and the propagation of mistakes in calculations for the prices composition . It is ended that the... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Orientador: Hidekasu Matsumoto / Banca: Alessandro Roger Rodrigues / Banca: Fatima de Lourdes dos Santos Nunes Marques / Resumo: Este trabalho procura auxiliar determinadas ferramentas da Gestão da Qualidade e alguns procedimentos em Engenharia de Produção. Baseado no desafio e na competitividade industrial que é estimulado pela evolução contínua de novas tecnologias, que busca o desenvolvimento e inovação constante de softwares aplicativos. Utilizando-se de técnicas tradicionais de apuração de custos de produção para garantir a lucratividade e qualidade de fabricação, procedeu-se ao estudo e ao entendimento de processos de fabricação e o desenvolvimento do sistema computacional, com a finalidade de armazenar dados e informações, para apurar o custo real de fabricação e poder determinar, com agilidade e precisão, preços de venda competitivos. O principal problema identificado diz respeito às decisões questionáveis na questão da formação de preços de venda de produtos, a partir da sua produção, que são tomadas através de dados e informações históricas de custos de fabricação coletadas informalmente e sem critérios específicos. Dessa forma, justifica-se a informatização e automatização dos procedimentos de controle de custeios, como beneficio às empresas de manufatura, minimizando o esforço de apuração e a propagação de erros em cálculos para a composição dos preços. Conclui-se que a implementação deste controle informatizado agrega valores à empresa, pelo beneficio... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: This work tries to aid certain tools of the Administration of the Quality and some procedures in Engineering of Production. Based on the challenge and in the industrial competitiveness that is stimulated by the continuous evolution of new technologies, that looks for the development and constant innovation of softwares applications. Being used of traditional techniques of examination of costs production to guarantee the quality of lucrativity and production, it was proceeded to the study and the understanding of production processes and the development of the computacional system, with the purpose of storing data and information, to hurry the real cost of production and to determine, with agility and precision, competitive sale prices. The main identified problem says respect to the questionable decisions in the subject of the formation of prices of sale of products, starting from its production, that are taken through data and historical information of costs of production collected informally and without specific approaches. In that way, it is justified the informatization and automation of the procedures of control of costings, as I benefit the manufacture companies, minimizing the examination effort and the propagation of mistakes in calculations for the prices composition . It is ended that the... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre