Slid pairs in the initialisation of the A5/1 stream cipher

A5/1 is a shift register based stream cipher which uses a majority clocking rule to update its registers. It is designed to provide privacy for the GSM system. In this paper, we analyse the initialisation process of A5/1. We demonstrate a sliding property of the A5/1 cipher, where every valid internal state is also a legitimate loaded state and multiple key-IV pairs produce phase shifted keystream sequences. We describe a possible ciphertext only attack based on this property.

“If I were a community leader”: knowing the world by changing it

Education Queensland teachers Gael Wilson and Tracey Herslet, and the principal of Waterford West State School, Di Carter, were proud as they watched the screening of their year five students’ movies at the national Building Child Friendly Communities Conference, held in Logan, Queensland in November 2011.

Weak key-IV pairs in the A5/1 stream cipher

A5/1 is a shift register based stream cipher which provides privacy for the GSM system. In this paper, we analyse the loading of the secret key and IV during the initialisation process of A5/1. We demonstrate the existence of weak key-IV pairs in the A5/1 cipher due to this loading process; these weak key-IV pairs may generate one, two or three registers containing all-zero values, which may lead in turn to weak keystream sequences. In the case where two or three registers contain only zeros, we describe a distinguisher which leads to a complete decryption of the affected messages.

Inter-sector senior leader transitions : experience and outcomes

Purpose The purpose of this article is to explore the experience of senior leaders who move into the public sector from other sectors of the economy, a process we refer to as inter-sector senior leader transitions. This is a little researched area of public sector leadership yet has significant implications for fundamental public sector reform. Design/methodology/approach We employed an interview design to elicit senior leaders' stories of their transition into the public sector. Findings The data suggest that successful senior leader transitions are more likely when a set of conditions is met; (1) the leader transitions into CEO role, rather than levels below CEO, (2) Ministers provide inter-sector transition support, (3) senior leaders develop responses to stress, (4) senior leaders reject high formalization, (5) their change processes focus on building capacity, and (6) senior leaders confront dysfunctional organizational relationships directly. Research limitations/implications The research relies on a relatively small sample. However, access to senior managers at this level can be difficult. Nevertheless, those senior managers who participated were very willing to share their stories. Practical implications If public sector organizations are to realize the value of successful leaders from other sectors, they need to invest in structured processes that facilitate the transition. A laissez-faire approach is not viable given the cost of such transitions. Originality/value The paper focuses on a little researched area of leadership experience which has significant implications for the development and change of the public sector.

Identifying the Events That Connect Social Media Users : Charting Follower Accession on Twitter

Twitter is the focus of much research attention, both in traditional academic circles and in commercial market and media research, as analytics give increasing insight into the performance of the platform in areas as diverse as political communication, crisis management, television audiencing and other industries. While methods for tracking Twitter keywords and hashtags have developed apace and are well documented, the make-up of the Twitter user base and its evolution over time have been less understood to date. Recent research efforts have taken advantage of functionality provided by Twitter's Application Programming Interface to develop methodologies to extract information that allows us to understand the growth of Twitter, its geographic spread and the processes by which particular Twitter users have attracted followers. From politicians to sporting teams, and from YouTube personalities to reality television stars, this technique enables us to gain an understanding of what prompts users to follow others on Twitter. This article outlines how we came upon this approach, describes the method we adopted to produce accession graphs and discusses their use in Twitter research. It also addresses the wider ethical implications of social network analytics, particularly in the context of a detailed study of the Twitter user base.

Towards a methodology for examining Twitter follower accession

The analysis of content and meta–data has long been the subject of most Twitter studies, however such research only tells part of the story of the development of Twitter as a platform. In this work, we introduce a methodology to determine the growth patterns of individual users of the platform, a technique we refer to as follower accession, and through a number of case studies consider the factors which lead to follower growth, and the identification of non–authentic followers. Finally, we consider what such an approach tells us about the history of the platform itself, and the way in which changes to the new user signup process have impacted upon users.

Follow the leader if you can, hedge if you must

Follow-the-Leader (FTL) is an intuitive sequential prediction strategy that guarantees constant regret in the stochastic setting, but has poor performance for worst-case data. Other hedging strategies have better worst-case guarantees but may perform much worse than FTL if the data are not maximally adversarial. We introduce the FlipFlop algorithm, which is the first method that provably combines the best of both worlds. As a stepping stone for our analysis, we develop AdaHedge, which is a new way of dynamically tuning the learning rate in Hedge without using the doubling trick. AdaHedge refines a method by Cesa-Bianchi, Mansour, and Stoltz (2007), yielding improved worst-case guarantees. By interleaving AdaHedge and FTL, FlipFlop achieves regret within a constant factor of the FTL regret, without sacrificing AdaHedge’s worst-case guarantees. AdaHedge and FlipFlop do not need to know the range of the losses in advance; moreover, unlike earlier methods, both have the intuitive property that the issued weights are invariant under rescaling and translation of the losses. The losses are also allowed to be negative, in which case they may be interpreted as gains.

Profile of a narcissistic leader : coffee’s for closers only

Purpose In the past, leadership scholars have tended to focus on leadership as a force for good and productivity (Ashworth, 1994; Higgs, 2009; Padilla, Hogan, & Kaiser, 2007). However, recently attention has been given to the ‘dark side’ of leadership (see Higgs, 2009; Judge, Piccolo, & Kosalka, 2009). The aim of this chapter is to explore dark leadership from the perspective of the narcissistic leader using a fictional character from a popular film. Methodology/approach Using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition, 1994 (DSM-IV) (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) as an operational definition of narcissistic personality disorder we explore the psychology of the narcissistic leader through a fictional character study in a popular film. Findings We have created a psychological profile of a narcissistic leader which identifies specific behavioural characteristics within a toxic organizational culture. Social implications This study has implications for employees within any organizational culture. It is significant because it can illustrate how dark leadership can impact negatively within organizations. Originality/value The use of actual living persons on which to base case study material in the study of dark leadership is problematic and constrained by ethical issues. However, the use of characters in fiction, such as contemporary film and drama, represents an excellent source of case study material. Given that little empirical works exists on narcissistic leaders and leadership, the chapter adds originality and value to the field.

Leader vision and diffusion of HR policy during change

Purpose – This paper utilizes diffusion of innovation theory in order to investigate and understand the relationships between HR policies on employee change-related outcomes. In addition, the aim is to explore the role of leader vision at different hierarchical levels in the organization in terms of the relationship of HR policy with employee change-related outcomes. Design/methodology/approach – This quantitative study was conducted in one large Australian government department undergoing major restructuring and cultural change. Data from 624 employees were analyzed in relation to knowledge of HR policies (awareness and clarity), leader vision (organizational and divisional), and change-related outcomes. Findings –Policy knowledge (awareness and clarity) does not have a direct impact on employee change-related outcomes. It is the implementation of policies through the divisional leader that begins to enable favorable employee outcomes. Research limitations/implications – Future research should employ a longitudinal design to investigate relationships over time, and also examine the importance of communication medium and individual preferences in relation to leader vision. Originality/value - This research extends the application of diffusion of innovation theory and leader vision theory to investigate the relationship between HR policy, leader vision, and employees’ change-related outcomes.

FluMum : a prospective cohort study of mother-infant pairs assessing the effectiveness of maternal influenza vaccination in prevention of influenza in early infancy

INTRODUCTION Influenza vaccination in pregnancy is recommended for all women in Australia, particularly those who will be in their second or third trimester during the influenza season. However, there has been no systematic monitoring of influenza vaccine uptake among pregnant women in Australia. Evidence is emerging of benefit to the infant with respect to preventing influenza infection in the first 6 months of life. The FluMum study aims to systematically monitor influenza vaccine uptake during pregnancy in Australia and determine the effectiveness of maternal vaccination in preventing laboratory-confirmed influenza in their offspring up to 6 months of age. METHODS AND ANALYSIS A prospective cohort study of 10 106 mother-infant pairs recruited between 38 weeks gestation and 55 days postdelivery in six Australian capital cities. Detailed maternal and infant information is collected at enrolment, including influenza illness and vaccination history with a follow-up data collection time point at infant age 6 months. The primary outcome is laboratory-confirmed influenza in the infant. Case ascertainment occurs through searches of Australian notifiable diseases data sets once the infant turns 6 months of age (with parental consent). The primary analysis involves calculating vaccine effectiveness against laboratory-confirmed influenza by comparing the incidence of influenza in infants of vaccinated mothers to the incidence in infants of unvaccinated mothers. Secondary analyses include annual and pooled estimates of the proportion of mothers vaccinated during pregnancy, the effectiveness of maternal vaccination in preventing hospitalisation for acute respiratory illness and modelling to assess the determinants of vaccination. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION The study was approved by all institutional Human Research Ethics Committees responsible for participating sites. Study findings will be published in peer review journals and presented at national and international conferences. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER The study is registered with the Australia and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR) number: 12612000175875.

If you're going to be a leader, at least act like it! Prejudice towards women who are tentative in leader roles

Role congruity theory predicts prejudice towards women who meet the agentic requirements of the leader role. In line with recent findings indicating greater acceptance of agentic behaviour from women, we find evidence for a more subtle form of prejudice towards women who fail to display agency in leader roles. Using a classic methodology, the agency of male and female leaders was manipulated using assertive or tentative speech, presented through written (Study 1, N = 167) or verbal (Study 2, N = 66) communications. Consistent with predictions, assertive women were as likeable and influential as assertive men, while being tentative in leadership reduced the likeability and influence of women, but not of men. Although approval of agentic behaviour from women in leadership reflects progress, evidence that women are quickly singled out for disapproval if they fail to show agency is important for understanding how they continue to be at a distinct disadvantage to men in leader roles.

The QUT Training Model for Peer Leader Capacity Building

QUT has enacted a university-wide Peer Program’s Strategy which aims to improve student success and graduate outcomes. A component of this strategy is a training model providing relevant, quality-assured and timely training for all students who take on leadership roles. The training model is designed to meet the needs of the growing scale and variety of peer programs, and to recognise the multiple roles and programs in which students may be involved during their peer leader journey. The model builds peer leader capacity by offering centralised, beginning and ongoing training modules, delivered by in-house providers, covering topics which prepare students to perform their role safely, inclusively, accountably and skilfully. The model also provides efficiencies by differentiating between ‘core competency' and ‘program-specific’ modules, thus avoiding training duplication across multiple programs, and enabling training to be individually and flexibly formatted to suit the specific and unique needs of each program.

Peer Leader Roles Descriptors

Across QUT there are a spectrum of peer-to-peer programs and activities initiated by both staff and students that have been designed to build the capacity of all students to ensure they reach their full learning potential. Peer leader roles have in common a focus on building students' sense of belonging to the university, and in doing so, boosting their confidence as learners and capacity to succeed academically. This document provides a set of descriptors that provides details of the various peer leader roles across QUT and their associated responsibilities.