Thesis (M.P.H.)--University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 67-74).

Thesis (M.P.H.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005.

Thesis (M.Sc.)--York University, 2004. Graduate Programme in Computer Science. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 118-121). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ99317

Jamais les enjeux de la surveillance dans la société n’ont été autant mis en avant dans les discours politiques et la presse internationale que depuis les divulgations d’Edward Snowden sur les programmes de surveillance américains, durant l’été 2013. Plus d’une dizaine d’années auparavant, l’exposition CTRL [SPACE] au ZKM de Karlsruhe avait montré comment, depuis longtemps, les mécanismes de la surveillance, des médias de masse et la convergence de leurs fonctionnements se reflétaient dans l’art contemporain. Peter Weibel pointait dès les années 60, dans ses installations et ses écrits, les comportements contradictoires qui se développent dans une société de surveillance. De la société de surveillance à la société de contrôle, la société spectaculaire, puis post-Spectaculaire, jusqu’à l’actuelle société de sousveillance, c’est-À-Dire de la cybersurveillance et de la dataveillance, l’influence de ces mécanismes a toujours fait controverse. Alors qu’une approche artistique s’attache avant tout à la manipulation, voire à l’effacement de l’individu et de sa réalité, une autre approche se concentre sur les possibilités de créativité et d’inventivité qui se présentent à l’individu au sein d’une société caractérisée par la surveillance et les médias de masse. La présente recherche se situe dans la tension qui émerge entre ces deux positions. Le point de départ est le terme observer, qui renvoie à la fois à un acte perceptuel et à un acte d’adaptation. En même temps, tout acte d’observation s’insère nécessairement dans une « relation » d’observation. Et il faut envisager la réversibilité potentielle de la relation. En effet, l’art contemporain révèle des tactiques de contre-Surveillance et de contre-Observation, cette dernière étant révélatrice de la façon dont nous vivons les changements socio-Politiques – notamment depuis le 11 septembre 2001. Une théorie et une pratique de la (contre-)observation sont nécessaires afin d’analyser l’esthétique qui apparaît ainsi. / He matter of surveillance has never been as present in political discourse and the international press as much as since the divulgence of the American surveillance programs by Edward Snowden in the summer of 2013. Nonetheless, more then 10 years earlier, the exhibition CTRL [SPACE] at the ZKM in Karlsruhe had widely shown how the mechanisms of surveillance and mass media and the convergence of their functioning had, for a long time, been reflected in contemporary art. Since the 1960s, Peter Weibel had already pointed to the contradictory modes of behaviour that develop in a society of surveillance in his installations and writings. From the society of surveillance to the society of control, the spectacular society, and then post-Spectacular society, to the current society of “sousveillance”, that is of cyber-Surveillance and dataveillance, the influence of these mechanisms has always been discussed with controversy. While one artistic approach focuses mainly on the manipulation, or even disappearance of the individual and their reality, another approach concentrates on the possibilities of creativity and inventiveness that present themselves to the individual in a society characterized by surveillance and mass media.The present doctoral thesis situates itself in the tension that emerges between these two positions. The point of departure is the term to observe that signifies a perceptual act as well as an act of adaptation. At the same time, every act of observation necessarily takes part in an observational “relationship”. Therefore, the potential reversibility of the relationship has to be taken into account. Effectively, contemporary art reveals tactics of counter-Surveillance and counter-Observation. The latter give insight into the way we deal with socio-Political changes – especially since the 11th of September 2001. A theory and a practice of (counter-)observation are necessary to analyze the aesthetics that have appeared in this regard.

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This thesis interrogates the website BlueServo.net through a neoliberal framework with a focus on surveillance theory. BlueServo is a site that registers users as "Virtual Deputies" and allows them to file reports with U.S. Border Patrol on activity observed through camera feeds trained on the U.S.-Mexico Border. Employing textual analysis of the site and its attendant Facebook page, four thematic categories emerge for analysis: Labor, Entertainment, State, and Social Sorting. This thesis concludes with a discussion of the site in relation to reality TV and video game culture and the future of increasingly sophisticated and widely accessible digital surveillance as applied to social minorities.

The systematic monitoring of citizens by the state in Peru was revealed in 2000, after the collapse of the second administration of ex-president Alberto Fujimori (1995-2000). Fujimori resigned in his last year in office, after a network of government espionage and corruption was revealed. This included video recordings of secret meetings and alleged communications surveillance conducted and managed by presidential advisor Vladimiro Montesinos, working with the National Intelligence Service (SIN). This systematic surveillance by the state resulted in the dissemination of private information, recordings and videos of public officials, journalists and many other influential people. These events sparked the beginning of the debate around the purpose of surveillance in Peru, and the violation of the right to private communications by state agencies and private entities – and what legislation could be developed to regulate this. This discussion is ongoing, with more cases of communications interception being revealed.

The focus of this research is to study how targets can be more faithfully detected in a multi-camera CCTV network system using spectral feature for the detection. The objective of the work is to develop colour constancy (CC) methodology to help maintain the spectral feature of the scene into a constant stable state irrespective of variable illuminations and camera calibration issues. Unlike previous work in the field of target detection, two versions of CC algorithms have been developed during the course of this work which are capable to maintain colour constancy for every image pixel in the scene: 1) a method termed as Enhanced Luminance Reflectance CC (ELRCC) which consists of a pixel-wise sigmoid function for an adaptive dynamic range compression, 2) Enhanced Target Detection and Recognition Colour Constancy (ETDCC) algorithm which employs a bidirectional pixel-wise non-linear transfer PWNLTF function, a centre-surround luminance enhancement and a Grey Edge white balancing routine. The effectiveness of target detections for all developed CC algorithms have been validated using multi-camera ‘Imagery Library for Intelligent Detection Systems’ (iLIDS), ‘Performance Evaluation of Tracking and Surveillance’ (PETS) and ‘Ground Truth Colour Chart’ (GTCC) datasets. It is shown that the developed CC algorithms have enhanced target detection efficiency by over 175% compared with that without CC enhancement. The contribution of this research has been one journal paper published in the Optical Engineering together with 3 conference papers in the subject of research.

The study focus on socio-legal dimension of medical data surveillance in the workplace on the example of the South African workplace response to HIV/AIDS. The strating point is the problem of growing data gathering and monitoring as an institutional feature of the information/surveillance society. Studying the problem in the context of workplace aims at indicating possibilities for social partners to respond to the new developments in the area of workplace surveillance and HIV/AIDS management in particular. The empirical data has been drawn from document analysis and interviews with trade union and business representatives from South Africa, involved in developing workplace response to HIV/AIDS. Particularly, the study is interested in identifying ways in which trade unions can make personal data treatment a trade union issue.

Mokola virus (MOKV), a rabies-related lyssavirus, represents one of 17 recognized species within the Lyssavirus genus, all of which are capable of causing the fatal encephalitic rabies disease. MOKV is exclusively endemic to Africa with only 30 sporadic cases reported since its discovery more than 50 years ago. The reservoir host for MOKV remains unknown, however, several hypotheses have been formulated. Small non-volant mammals (i.e. shrews, sengis and rodents) have been suggested as possible reservoir hosts with previous MOKV isolations from shrews (Crocidura spp.) and a single rodent (Lophuromys sikapusi) providing support of the first lyssavirus species that has an association with small non-volant mammals. To investigate further, nucleic acid- and serological surveillance were conducted in small non-volant mammals from Southern Africa (specifically South Africa and Mozambique). Nucleic acid surveillance with a pan-lyssavirus qRT-PCR assay of 355 brain samples did not identify any new MOKV infections. Serological surveillance using a micro-neutralization test of 287 serum samples identified 37 samples that were positive for the presence of MOKV virus neutralizing antibodies. These positive serum samples indicate previous MOKV exposure and were all collected from Bushveld gerbils (Gerbilliscus leucogaster) in both South Africa (n=36) and Mozambique (n=1). From all of the Bushveld gerbils that were tested, an overall MOKV seropositivity of 87.80% is observed for the gerbils that were caught at Meletse in Limpopo. Since MOKV have been shown to cross-react in serological assay with closely-related lyssaviruses, the seropositivity observed could have been due to exposure of another phylogroup II lyssavirus. Serological evidence of MOKV in this rodent species was previously observed in a study conducted in Zimbabwe in 1988, which raises their profile as a potential MOKV host candidate. Experimental pathogenicity studies support this notion due to significant amounts of MOKV found in their salivary glands that could be sufficient for transmission. To gain further insight of the phylogeny and genetic diversity of MOKV, complete genome sequences of three historic MOKV isolates from South Africa (MOKV 700/70, 229/97, and 12/458) were generated. Future studies are needed to expand surveillance, detection and characterization of lyssaviruses. / Dissertation (MSc (Medical Virology))--University of Pretoria, 2020. / The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Global Disease Detection (GDD) Programme (Corporate Agreement Number: 5 NU2GGH001874-02-00). / The South African Research Chair in Infectious Diseases of Animals (Zoonoses) from the National Research Foundation (NRF) of the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), Prof. Wanda Markotter (UID98339), as well as additional grants awarded to Prof. Markotter by the NRF (UID92524, UID85756 & UID91496). / Medical Virology / MSc (Medical Virology) / Restricted