Over the past several decades, the numbers of international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) that focus on tackling human rights issues have grown rapidly. These organizations operate internationally and work with governments, legislatures, social movement leaders, activists, donors, and individual citizens. As the number of operating INGOs has risen dramatically, researchers have simultaneously begun to investigate the possibility of creating a global civil society that would govern itself in order to maintain peace, create global solidarity and achieve human rights. This research investigates the role of nonprofit organizations in developing a global civil society by evaluating U.S.-based organizations that are tapping into an often-uninvolved subset of society—American donors. / Master of Public and International Affairs

Autonomous mobile robots in agriculture have brought digital transformations with new automation technologies. Mundane tasks in agricultural fields involve long-term deployment of scheduled assignments done over long working hours. Hectares of land also require much distance to be traveled by the robot, wherein surviving without stranding powerless amid operation is a key factor towards long-term autonomy. Scheduling tasks are usually required as the mobile robot’s battery life is limited. However, dynamic and unstructured outdoor environments make it practically challenging to abide by a schedule even with fixed charging routines. Most robot systems use hard thresholds and fixed periods to decide when to charge. These measures produce behaviors that ignore the safety risk by not considering current conditions. Instead, the robot should adaptively return to the charger or call for human assistance. Safety was a score in this work that represented the robot’s ability to return to the charger at any time. This thesis proposes a real-time safety watchdog that exploits parameters like charger distance, mileage, and current battery status to calculate safety. Hence, a safety-constraint based approach is followed to flexibly sustain survivability during long-term deployments.This work compared a typical rule-based system to the real-time safety watchdog that monitors multiple parameters based on the battery state. Simulated results empirically showed that the latter approach ensures survivability and maintains a healthy performance that supports long-term autonomy. The concept of a real-time safety watchdog is also showcased on a physical robot, pushing statistical evaluation that uses values of long-term deployment as future work. Although a watchdog ensures survivability to a planned schedule, adapting the experience in the upcoming schedule can be worked upon to continue this work. / Autonoma mobila robotar inom jordbruket har lett till digitala förändringar med ny automationsteknik. Vanliga arbetsuppgifter inom jordbruket innebär långvariga, schemalagda uppdrag som utförs under långa arbetstider. Hektar av mark kräver också att roboten färdas långa sträckor, och att överleva utan att stranda utan ström mitt i arbetet är en nyckelfaktor för långsiktig autonomi. Schemaläggningsuppgifter krävs vanligtvis eftersom den mobila robotens batteritid är begränsad. Dynamiska och ostrukturerade utomhusmiljöer gör det dock praktiskt taget svårt att följa ett schema även med fasta laddningsrutiner. De flesta robotsystem använder hårda tröskelvärden och fasta perioder för att bestämma när laddning ska ske. Dessa åtgärder ger upphov till beteenden som ignorerar säkerhetsrisken genom att de inte tar hänsyn till de aktuella förhållandena. I stället bör roboten adaptivt återvända till laddaren eller kalla på mänsklig hjälp. Säkerheten var ett poäng i detta arbete som representerade robotens förmåga att återvända till laddaren när som helst. I den här avhandlingen föreslås en säkerhetsövervakare i realtid som utnyttjar parametrar som laddningsavstånd, körsträcka och aktuell batteristatus för att beräkna säkerheten. Därför följs en säkerhetsbegränsningsbaserad strategi för att flexibelt upprätthålla överlevnadsförmågan under långvariga utplaceringar.I detta arbete jämfördes ett typiskt regelbaserat system med en säkerhetsövervakningshund i realtid som övervakar flera parametrar baserat på batteriets status. Simulerade resultat visade empiriskt att den senare metoden säkerställer överlevnadsförmåga och upprätthåller en sund prestanda som stöder långsiktig autonomi. Konceptet med en säkerhetsövervakningshund i realtid presenteras också. på en fysisk robot, genom att trycka på statistisk utvärdering som använder värden för långsiktig användning som framtida arbete. Även om en vakthund säkerställer överlevnadsförmåga till en planerad tidtabell, kan det vara svårt att anpassa erfarenheterna till den kommande tidtabellen. kan man arbeta med för att fortsätta detta arbete.

Les systèmes critiques, parmi lesquels les systèmes embarqués construits autour d'un microprocesseur mono-cœur exécutant un logiciel d'application, ne sont pas à l'abri d'interférences naturelles ou malveillantes qui peuvent provoquer des fautes transitoires. Cette thèse porte sur des protections qui peuvent être implantées pour détecter les effets de telles fautes transitoires sans faire d'hypothèses sur la multiplicité des erreurs générées. De plus, ces erreurs peuvent être soit des erreurs de flot de contrôle soit des erreurs sur les données. Une nouvelle méthode de vérification de flot de contrôle est tout d'abord proposée. Elle permet de vérifier, sans modifier le système initial, que les instructions du programme d'application sont lues sans erreur et dans le bon ordre. Les erreurs sur les données sont également prises en compte par une extension de la vérification de flot de contrôle. La méthode proposée offre un bon compromis entre les différents surcoûts, le temps de latence de détection et la couverture des erreurs. Les surcoûts peuvent aussi être ajustés aux besoins de l'application. La méthode est mise en œuvre sur un prototype, construit autour d'un microprocesseur Sparc v8. Les fonctions d'analyse de criticité développées dans le cadre de la méthodologie proposée sont également utilisées pour évaluer l'impact des options de compilation sur la robustesse intrinsèque du logiciel d'application. / Critical systems, including embedded systems built around a single core microprocessor running a software application, can be the target of natural or malicious interferences that may cause transient faults. This work focuses on protections that can be implemented to detect the effects of such transient faults without any assumption about the multiplicity of generated errors. In addition, those errors can be either control flow errors or data errors. A new control flow checking method is first proposed. It monitors, without modifying the original system, that the instructions of the microprocessor application program are read without error and in the proper order. Data errors are also taken into account by an extension of the control flow checking. The proposed method offers a good compromise between overheads, latency detection and errors coverage. Trade-offs can also be tuned according to the application constraints. The methodology is demonstrated on a prototype built around a Sparc v8 microprocessor. Criticality evaluation functions developed in the frame of the proposed methodology are also used to evaluate the impact of compilation options on the intrinsic robustness of the application software.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, Journalism and Media Studies, 2013 / HIV and AIDS came into the national spotlight as soon as the ANC government took over from the Apartheid regime in South Africa and media coverage of the pandemic has attracted considerable attention. This research investigates how journalists view the way they covered HIV and AIDS in the new South Africa — after 1994. This was a time when the journalism profession was faced with a wide range of expectations including educating people about their rights, exposing the escalation of crime and corruption, reporting on service delivery and promoting social cohesion or transformation. Arguably, this was also a time when the government expected the media to help it build new social cohesiveness and be less critical of its shortcomings. The research investigates how journalists handled the interplay of news values, journalistic practices and political pressures of HIV/AIDS reporting after 1994. Careful attention is given specifically to the period of 1996 to 1999 since this period was marked by many HIV and AIDS controversies. The Virodene saga, one of the scandals that saw HIV and AIDS making headlines at the time, is used as the primary case study of this investigation. This study uses the social responsibility theory as the main theoretical framework. The theory states that the media has an obligation to educate and inform people; thereby playing a monitorial or watchdog role — making sure the government is accountable to the people who voted it in. The research used in-depth interviews with eight journalists who covered HIV and AIDS in the new South Africa to get their views on the issue and a brief content analysis to understand how HIV and AIDS scandals broke and how journalists handled them. Though previous research shows that HIV and AIDS was not well covered and only made headlines when the story was a controversy, findings in this study challenge these notions. The research found that despite feeling the need to give the government a chance to mature (collaborative role), journalists chose to play the social responsibility or watchdog role in HIV reporting by covering facts despite this reflecting badly on the government. The paper also points out that the Virodene story ‘automatically’ turned into a scandal and in newsroom terms, became a political story, not an ordinary a health story. Although journalistic professional values have been criticised for causing journalists to favour certain issues over others, in this case they exposed government’s shortfalls and averted a potentially disastrous situation. This research not only positions itself to offer deep understanding of the sensitive issue of HIV and AIDS reporting but also offers insights into the very ethos of the journalism profession itself.

No mercado altamente globalizado de hoje, a manutenção dos equipamentos tem se tornado um fator crucial para as empresas dos mais diversos segmentos. Técnicas de manutenção baseadas no nível de degradação dos equipamentos estão sendo preferidas em detrimento das técnicas tradicionais como manutenção corretiva e preventiva, e trazem benefícios como tempos de paradas reduzidos, tarefas de manutenção facilitadas e melhor gerenciamento de ativos. Com o desenvolvimento das técnicas de manutenção inteligente, os sistemas embarcados que comportarão estes algoritmos necessitarão cada vez mais de alta flexibilidade, combinada com alta velocidade de processamento e baixo consumo. Em outras palavras, eles tornam-se cada vez mais complexos, o que tem impacto direto no projeto destes sistemas. Neste contexto, a programação baseada em modelos em conjunto com a capacidade de geração automática de código para uma dada plataforma tem despertado grande interesse. O presente trabalho tem como objetivo realizar a análise dos espaços de projeto e também do desempenho de diferentes implementações para algoritmos de manutenção inteligente quando executados em hardware e software. A partir de implementações disponíveis nos ambientes MATLAB e LabVIEW™ de um sistema de manutenção inteligente chamado Watchdog Agent™, e utilizando ferramentas de geração automática de código, o desempenho dos sistemas de manutenção gerados é comparado usando-se parâmetros como tempo de execução e ocupação de memória ou da área do FPGA. Para os testes são utilizados dados de vibração coletados de uma bancada de testes composta por um atuador eletromecânico para válvulas. / In today’s highly globalized market, equipment maintenance has become a crucial factor for companies from several segments. Maintenance strategies based on equipment’s condition level are being preferred in place of traditional techniques such as corrective and preventive maintenance, and incur in benefits such as reduced downtime, facilitated maintenance tasks and better assets management. With the development of intelligent maintenance techniques, the embedded systems that will be used with such algorithms will need increasingly more flexibility, combined with high processing speed and low power consumption. In other words, they became increasingly more complex, what directly impact in their project. Within this context, model based engineering associated with automatic platform-specific code generation capabilities are of great interest. This work has as objective to perform a design space exploration by analyzing the performance of different implementations for intelligent maintenance algorithms when executed in hardware and software. Based on implementations available in MATLAB™ and LabVIEW™ environments of an intelligent maintenance system called Watchdog Agent, and using automatic code generation tools, the performance of the generated systems are compared using parameters such as execution time and memory or FPGA area occupation. For the validation tests, vibration data collected from a test bench composed by an electric mechanical actuator will be used.

No mercado altamente globalizado de hoje, a manutenção dos equipamentos tem se tornado um fator crucial para as empresas dos mais diversos segmentos. Técnicas de manutenção baseadas no nível de degradação dos equipamentos estão sendo preferidas em detrimento das técnicas tradicionais como manutenção corretiva e preventiva, e trazem benefícios como tempos de paradas reduzidos, tarefas de manutenção facilitadas e melhor gerenciamento de ativos. Com o desenvolvimento das técnicas de manutenção inteligente, os sistemas embarcados que comportarão estes algoritmos necessitarão cada vez mais de alta flexibilidade, combinada com alta velocidade de processamento e baixo consumo. Em outras palavras, eles tornam-se cada vez mais complexos, o que tem impacto direto no projeto destes sistemas. Neste contexto, a programação baseada em modelos em conjunto com a capacidade de geração automática de código para uma dada plataforma tem despertado grande interesse. O presente trabalho tem como objetivo realizar a análise dos espaços de projeto e também do desempenho de diferentes implementações para algoritmos de manutenção inteligente quando executados em hardware e software. A partir de implementações disponíveis nos ambientes MATLAB e LabVIEW™ de um sistema de manutenção inteligente chamado Watchdog Agent™, e utilizando ferramentas de geração automática de código, o desempenho dos sistemas de manutenção gerados é comparado usando-se parâmetros como tempo de execução e ocupação de memória ou da área do FPGA. Para os testes são utilizados dados de vibração coletados de uma bancada de testes composta por um atuador eletromecânico para válvulas. / In today’s highly globalized market, equipment maintenance has become a crucial factor for companies from several segments. Maintenance strategies based on equipment’s condition level are being preferred in place of traditional techniques such as corrective and preventive maintenance, and incur in benefits such as reduced downtime, facilitated maintenance tasks and better assets management. With the development of intelligent maintenance techniques, the embedded systems that will be used with such algorithms will need increasingly more flexibility, combined with high processing speed and low power consumption. In other words, they became increasingly more complex, what directly impact in their project. Within this context, model based engineering associated with automatic platform-specific code generation capabilities are of great interest. This work has as objective to perform a design space exploration by analyzing the performance of different implementations for intelligent maintenance algorithms when executed in hardware and software. Based on implementations available in MATLAB™ and LabVIEW™ environments of an intelligent maintenance system called Watchdog Agent, and using automatic code generation tools, the performance of the generated systems are compared using parameters such as execution time and memory or FPGA area occupation. For the validation tests, vibration data collected from a test bench composed by an electric mechanical actuator will be used.

No mercado altamente globalizado de hoje, a manutenção dos equipamentos tem se tornado um fator crucial para as empresas dos mais diversos segmentos. Técnicas de manutenção baseadas no nível de degradação dos equipamentos estão sendo preferidas em detrimento das técnicas tradicionais como manutenção corretiva e preventiva, e trazem benefícios como tempos de paradas reduzidos, tarefas de manutenção facilitadas e melhor gerenciamento de ativos. Com o desenvolvimento das técnicas de manutenção inteligente, os sistemas embarcados que comportarão estes algoritmos necessitarão cada vez mais de alta flexibilidade, combinada com alta velocidade de processamento e baixo consumo. Em outras palavras, eles tornam-se cada vez mais complexos, o que tem impacto direto no projeto destes sistemas. Neste contexto, a programação baseada em modelos em conjunto com a capacidade de geração automática de código para uma dada plataforma tem despertado grande interesse. O presente trabalho tem como objetivo realizar a análise dos espaços de projeto e também do desempenho de diferentes implementações para algoritmos de manutenção inteligente quando executados em hardware e software. A partir de implementações disponíveis nos ambientes MATLAB e LabVIEW™ de um sistema de manutenção inteligente chamado Watchdog Agent™, e utilizando ferramentas de geração automática de código, o desempenho dos sistemas de manutenção gerados é comparado usando-se parâmetros como tempo de execução e ocupação de memória ou da área do FPGA. Para os testes são utilizados dados de vibração coletados de uma bancada de testes composta por um atuador eletromecânico para válvulas. / In today’s highly globalized market, equipment maintenance has become a crucial factor for companies from several segments. Maintenance strategies based on equipment’s condition level are being preferred in place of traditional techniques such as corrective and preventive maintenance, and incur in benefits such as reduced downtime, facilitated maintenance tasks and better assets management. With the development of intelligent maintenance techniques, the embedded systems that will be used with such algorithms will need increasingly more flexibility, combined with high processing speed and low power consumption. In other words, they became increasingly more complex, what directly impact in their project. Within this context, model based engineering associated with automatic platform-specific code generation capabilities are of great interest. This work has as objective to perform a design space exploration by analyzing the performance of different implementations for intelligent maintenance algorithms when executed in hardware and software. Based on implementations available in MATLAB™ and LabVIEW™ environments of an intelligent maintenance system called Watchdog Agent, and using automatic code generation tools, the performance of the generated systems are compared using parameters such as execution time and memory or FPGA area occupation. For the validation tests, vibration data collected from a test bench composed by an electric mechanical actuator will be used.

This thesis deals with a design and implementation monitoring system of Starhill society computer network. Part of the design is development and realization hardware modules that provide restarting of remote network devices. Command transmission is realized through discretionary transceivers available, whose regulations can make such transmissions possible. A usage of 466~MHz frequency band is the main assumption. Both concept and implementation are described in the thesis. The designed system is integrated to the existing IS of the association.

Computer networks security is a topic which has been extensively researched. This research is fully justified when one notices the dimensions of the problem faced. One can easily identify different kinds of networks, a large quantity of network protocols, and an overwhelming amount of user applications that make extensive use of networks for the purposes those applications were built. This conforms a vast research field, where it is possible for a researcher to set his or her interests over a set of threats, vulnerabilities, or types of attacks, and devise a mechanism to prevent the attack, mitigate its effects or repair the final damages, based upon the specific characteristics of the scenario. Our research group on Computer Networks has been researching on certain kinds of computer networks security risks, specially those affecting wireless networks. In previous doctoral works [13], detection and exclusion methods for dealing with malicious nodes in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) had been proposed, from the point of view of every individual network node, using a technique called Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) based on Watchdog methods. In this scope, we pretend to optimize network throughput removing misbehaved nodes from the network communication processes, a task performed specifically by the Watchdog systems. When isolated security techniques obtain good results on dealing with one type of attacks, a way to improve the whole network performance could be establishing mechanisms for cooperatively sharing information between well-behaved nodes to speed up misbehaved node detection and increase accuracy. Obviously, these mechanisms will have a cost in terms of network transmission overhead and also a small computing time overhead needed to analize the received data and to obtain an opinion about a suspect node. The key issue here it to adequately balance the costs and the benefits related to these cooperation techniques to ensure that the overall network performance is increased if compared with a non-collaborative one. / Serrat Olmos, MD. (2013). Cooperation techniques to improve peer-to-peer wireless networks security [Tesis doctoral]. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/32831

The study concerns the inter-relationship between media reform and civil society in Thailand between 1995-2000. It examines case studies of two selected television organisations - the production company Watchdog and the broadcast channel Independent Television (iTV) - and analyses their internal production decision-making processes, their public affairs programs and their urban and rural audiences. Debates about civil society and media reform between 1995-2000 influenced the government's media regulation policies to the extent that more attention was paid to media freedom as intended by Articles 39, 40 and 41 in the 1997 Constitution. Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) took an important role in monitoring government policies on media reform under the Constitution and issues about media re-regulation and ownership were canvassed, although the drawn out National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) selecting process delayed media reform. The transparency of the selection process of the NBC has been widely debated among NGOs, media scholars and media professionals. Most Thai public affairs programs in the period were shown on iTV, Channel 9 and Channel 11 and were in the minority compared with entertainment. Thai television stations normally screened entertainment programs to make profits, while they usually would not allow producers to air open debates critical of the government. Also, public affairs programs that were screened often were given inappropriate airtimes. Watchdog and iTV treated public affairs programs in different ways. Watchdog, originating from an NCO, the Creative Media Foundation, emphasized public participation in local community-oriented programs - such as Chirmsak Pinthong's Lan Ban Lan Muang - which exemplified civic journalism on television. In contrast, iTV was created in 1996 to meet the promise made in 1992 after Black May that a non-state commercial channel would be introduced. It was organised by journalists from the Nation Multimedia Company and focused on current national news issues which seldom allowed public participation. Both organisations attempted to maintain their professionalism despite political and business pressures. Chirmsak and Watchdog were accused of bias favoring the Democrat Party and often encountered program censorship. ITV staff, especially in the news department led by Suthichai Yoon and Thepchai Yong, unsuccessful fought. Shin Corps 2000-2001 takeover of the station that had been brought on by the financial problems of iTV and the Siam Commercial Bank after the economic crisis of 1997. There were three main concepts of civil society in the period 1997-2000 - Communitarianism, Self-sufficiency and Good Governance. These ideas were advanced by reformers such as Dr. Prawase Wasi and Thirayut Boonme, and were reinforced by His Majesty King Bhumibol's December 1997 Birthday Speech that endorsed the ideal of national self-sufficiency. Thai civil society debates often were involved with rural people, while the 8th National Development Plan and the Chuan government's policy on decentralisation aimed to strengthen the rural sector as an antidote to the 1997 crisis. However, the aims of civil society reformers were at times too idealistic and were viewed with skepticism by some middle class urban critics. The continuing influence of electoral corruption in rural areas also obstructed civil society ideals, while decentralisation and community development still maintained a top-down way of development and depended on government support. These difficulties in implementing pro-civil society reforms in the political process were paralleled by difficulties in developing public interest programs on Thai television. Current affairs and investigative journalism programs, such as iTV Talk, Tod Rahad and Krong Satanakarn, did not often open public discussion on the programs. Rather, the regular format of panel discussions, consisting of elites and some celebrities, tended to focus on national topics rather than local issues. The hosts of many of these public affairs programs depended on their own celebrities status and tended to invite well-known guests, whereas community-oriented programs such as Lan Ban Lan Muang and Tid Ban Tang Muang promoted civic journalism and deliberative democracy more effectively. The latter programs allowed the public to participate in the programs as the main actors and even proposed their own agendas. However, a limited study of three audience focus groups - an expert urban group, a young middle class urban group, and a rural group - found considerable scepticism about the possibility of developing public interest awareness via television programs. The expert and young middle class groups criticised both the hosts and the style of a selection of current affairs programs, which they thought were too serious and also biased. Some also considered that current affairs programs were a platform for the people in power rather than providing a space for the public. Therefore, they rarely watched them. In contrast, the rural group who participated in Lan Ban Lan Muang, believed that the program was useful for development communication. The audience gained information about other communities and used the media as the means to publicise their own community. However, they rarely watched it because the airtime of the program was the same as a popular entertainment program on Channel 3. The researcher used qualitative research methods to collect data, including indepth interviews, focus groups, participant observation, program recording and document analysis. Theoretically, the study has attempted to combine the approaches of western and Thai scholars. The main approach used to explain the relationship between the media and civil society is media and public sphere theory, as introduced by Habermas, and combined with the perspectives on media re-regulation of the Thai scholar Ubonrat Siriyusak. In terms of analysing Watchdog and iTV, the researcher used political economy perspectives to understand decision-making in both organisations. In addition, an organisational culture approach was used to explore conflicts of interest that arose in both organisations due to their different sub-cultures. Civic journalism, framing theory and development communication theory were further employed to examine the television programs and their roles in promoting the public interest and development projects, while the audience groups were considered in the context of participatory communication theory and reception theory.