The purpose of this thesis is to elucidate which issues that are portrayed as external threats during a disarmament process versus an armament process in Sweden by studying two Defence Committee reports. To understand what is portrayed as external threats, an analysis of both reports and a comparison between them have been made. The research question for this thesis is: How are external threats portrayed in Defence Committee reports during a disarmament process versus an armament process? A qualitative text analysis is made with Carol Bacchi’s WPR method combined with the theory of securitization to analyse the material. The material consists of two Defence Committee reports, one from 2003 and one from 2019 to represent disarmament and rearmament. Previous research of Sweden’s disarmament process has shown that Russia is the main objective affecting Swedish defence policy. However, this thesis concludes that representation of the stability of the world order is affected by the United States being portrayed as reliable in case of conflict which affects the Defence Committee’s representation of external threats.

This diploma thesis deals with the relationship between the security and media discourse. Securitization, a model originally developed by the Copenhagen school, is here understood as a long term process which depends not only on a one-time designation of a certain phenomenon as a security threat, but it is co-constructed by many factors and agents. The media represents the world; it both reflects and forms its picture Critical discourse analysis enables the examination of the construction of security threats in the particular texts plus it also involves contextual factors in which it expands and deepens the insight into the particular issue. This work attempts to show through which means and in what respects Islam is or is not represented as a security threat in a chosen part of Czech online news discourse. It especially emphasizes the role of news values, routines and dominant ideology in securitizing processes.

This thesis examines the way in which China's share of the rare earths global industry is constructed as a threat. The central argument of the research is that the US discourse presented a new form of danger through the lens of classical geopolitical thinking, thus, creating a new type of prospective conflict derived from resources that are perceived to be scarce and yet relatively abundant. It argues that the construction of this 'threat' that the US faces is a constant articulation of perceived vulnerabilities in shaping geopolitical identities and reinforcing ideologies through which are carried out by different actors. Rare earths are crucial for modern conditions and their applications include commercial, military and green technology but mining and production are neither economical nor environmentally friendly. The People's Republic of China is the principal exporter of these rare metals, but because of a territorial dispute in the South China Sea in 2010 it has been labelled as a monopoly power. This study seeks to examine the constructed threat that China poses to the US. China, here, is not only constructed to be a resource hungry giant but also a malicious state that would utilise its 'monopoly' status as geopolitical leverage. The thesis will employ discourse analysis and wisdoms of...

Although some descriptions of stereotypes about drivers are documented in the literature, the specific behaviours representing these stereotypes have not been previously explored. In addition to identifying specific behaviours associated with stereotypes about female drivers, this thesis looks at the way that these stereotypes may be affected by the age of the stereotyped driver. Furthermore, a debate exists in the field of social psychology about whether the awareness of these stereotypes affects the performance of drivers from the stereotyped groups through the phenomenon known as stereotype threat. This thesis explores these topics through a series of three studies. In the first study, participants watched videos illustrating a variety of driving behaviours and indicated whether the driver was more likely to be male or female. In the second study, participants were told to imagine male and female drivers of different ages approaching a car, and the participants were asked to indicate which driver was more likely to take the wheel of the car and whether that driver was the safer of the two. In the third study, which consisted of two experiments, female participants were invited to complete several driving scenarios in a driving simulator. The first of the two experiments had two conditions: stereotype threat and neutral; the second experiment had an enhanced stereotype threat and a counterstereotype condition. The findings of the first study elucidated the specific behaviours that are stereotypically associated with male and female drivers. The second study showed that in many ways, driving is still considered to be a man’s prerogative, since men were frequently rated as more likely to drive and safer drivers than women. The results of the third study showed that the effects of these stereotypes on drivers can be difficult to detect using the stereotype threat paradigm in a driving simulator environment. Although stereotypes about male and female drivers from different age groups are still prevalent, their effects on the behaviour of the drivers from the stereotyped groups may be elusive and hard to reproduce in a simulated driving context.

This study was conducted to examine the impact of various social comparisons on stereotype threat for Black college students attending predominantly White colleges and universities (PWCUs). Additionally, explored was whether the student's Black racial identity would moderate the relationship between social comparison and academic achievement. Social comparison theory posits that to gain an accurate self-evaluation, individuals compare themselves to others who are similar; therefore, for Black college students attending PWCUs their comparison is most likely to occur with White students. Stereotype threat is being at risk of confirming a negative stereotype about one's group membership. Participants were 144 self-identified Black college students (including bi-and multiracially identified individuals), currently enrolled in college in the U.S. Data were collected in four phases, with the fourth phase utilizing a participant panel. The study was available for 7 months and was self-administered online through a popular survey software. Participants completed self-report measures, read statistics from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), completed two academic tasks, and viewed a slideshow presentation of images. Data patterns were similar for the White and neutral conditions and were similar for the matched minority and unmatched minority conditions; therefore, participants in the White comparison condition and neutral condition were grouped together to form one subordinate group (i.e., racial nonminority intervention group), and participants in the racially matched and unmatched minority comparison conditions were grouped together to form another subordinate group (i.e., racial minority intervention group). Results indicated a statistically significant effect for time by condition, F(1,142) = 4.776, p = .030, partial n2 = .033, with the racial nonminority group showing a greater impact on stereotype threat. Stereotype threat was positively impacted at a rate greater for the racial nonminority group than for the racial minority group.

Insider threat has continued to be one of the most difficult cybersecurity threat vectors detectable by contemporary technologies. Most organizations apply standard technology-based practices to detect unusual network activity. While there have been significant advances in intrusion detection systems (IDS) as well as security incident and event management solutions (SIEM), these technologies fail to take into consideration the human aspects of personality and emotion in computer use and network activity, since insider threats are human-initiated. External influencers impact how an end-user interacts with both colleagues and organizational resources. Taking into consideration external influencers, such as personality, changes in organizational polices and structure, along with unusual technical activity analysis, would be an improvement over contemporary detection tools used for identifying at-risk employees. This would allow upper management or other organizational units to intervene before a malicious cybersecurity insider threat event occurs, or mitigate it quickly, once initiated. The main goal of this research study was to design, develop, and validate a proof-of-concept prototype for a malicious cybersecurity insider threat alerting system that will assist in the rapid detection and prediction of human-centric precursors to malicious cybersecurity insider threat activity. Disgruntled employees or end-users wishing to cause harm to the organization may do so by abusing the trust given to them in their access to available network and organizational resources. Reports on malicious insider threat actions indicated that insider threat attacks make up roughly 23% of all cybercrime incidents, resulting in $2.9 trillion in employee fraud losses globally. The damage and negative impact that insider threats cause was reported to be higher than that of outsider or other types of cybercrime incidents. Consequently, this study utilized weighted indicators to measure and correlate simulated user activity to possible precursors to malicious cybersecurity insider threat attacks. This study consisted of a mixed method approach utilizing an expert panel, developmental research, and quantitative data analysis using the developed tool on simulated data set. To assure validity and reliability of the indicators, a panel of subject matter experts (SMEs) reviewed the indicators and indicator categorizations that were collected from prior literature following the Delphi technique. The SMEs’ responses were incorporated into the development of a proof-of-concept prototype. Once the proof-of-concept prototype was completed and fully tested, an empirical simulation research study was conducted utilizing simulated user activity within a 16-month time frame. The results of the empirical simulation study were analyzed and presented. Recommendations resulting from the study also be provided.

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Thermal cameras are used in numerous computer vision applications, such as human detection and scene understanding. However, the cost of high quality and high resolution thermal sensors is often a limiting factor. Conversely, high resolution visual spectrum cameras are readily available and generally inexpensive. Herein, we explore the creation of higher quality upsampled thermal imagery using a high resolution visual spectrum camera and Markov random fields theory. This paper also presents a discussion of the tradeoffs from this approach and the effects of upsampling, both from quantitative and qualitative perspectives. Our results demonstrate the successful application of this approach for human detection and the accurate propagation of thermal measurements within images for more general tasks like scene understanding. A tradeoff analysis of the costs related to performance as the resolution of the thermal camera decreases are also provided.

This investigation examined the hypothesis that the presence of relationship threat leads to decreased working memory capacity, and also changes partner perceptions based on adult attachment style. To test this hypothesis, participants were exposed to a threat or no-threat manipulation and then completed measures examining partner perceptions and individual differences. Results suggest that the threat manipulation might have been strong enough for only highly anxious people. These individuals showed higher levels of working memory capacity following a relationship threat, compared to more securely attached persons, and later described their partners in more global, less desirable terms, regardless of threat condition. Highly avoidant individuals also described romantic partners in less desirable terms compared to more securely attached persons, regardless of threat condition. Individual difference measures suggest that rejection sensitivity and neuroticism may contribute to how romantic partners are perceived. Implications for future research on relationship threat and partner perceptions are discussed.