Surveillance et ordre commercial : ethnographie d’un centre de contrôle de vidéosurveillance en milieu privé de masse

Dans l’optique que la télésurveillance est devenue un outil indispensable en matière de sécurité, notre projet de recherche porte sur la manière dont elle est utilisée à des fins de gestion de l’ordre dans une propriété privée de masse (propriété privée que le public général est invité à visiter). Il s’agit de comprendre le rôle du centre de contrôle de télésurveillance dans la gestion d’un centre commercial. De façon plus spécifique, nous voulons décrire le fonctionnement et les objectifs des technologies de télésurveillance et les méthodes de contrôle utilisées dans un espace privé de masse. Nous voulons décrire les pratiques des agents affectés au centre de contrôle de télésurveillance ainsi que leur perception des notions de sécurité et d’ordre, avec une attention particulière accordée à la surveillance des lieux. Le site que nous avons sélectionné est un édifice situé en plein cœur du centre-ville de Montréal, où nous retrouvons des galeries commerciales abritant plusieurs restaurants et boutiques. Afin d’atteindre nos objectifs de recherche, nous avons fait plus de 150 heures d’observation participante dans le centre de contrôle de télésurveillance. Nos observations étaient complétées par des entretiens spontanés, afin de bien comprendre la dynamique et les interactions entre les agents, les autres employés et les visiteurs. Ainsi, notre matériel empirique est surtout de nature qualitative, mais nous avons complété ces données avec une grille d’analyse quantitative permettant une analyse minutieuse de l’emploi du temps des agents de sécurité à l’aide d’un fichier informatisé. Nous sommes en mesure d’établir que la surveillance dans une propriété privée de masse vise, à biens des égards, la gestion de l’image. La sécurité proprement dite est reléguée au second plan, derrière tout ce qui est relatif au marketing et à l’encouragement à la consommation. De plus, nous avons constaté que les agents de sécurité dans de tels lieux servent surtout à répondre à des besoins organisationnels ponctuels, leur quotidien n’étant guidé par aucune mission globale. Quant au centre de contrôle de vidéosurveillance, nous pouvons affirmer que son rôle est de s’assurer que toutes les activités au centre se déroulent comme convenu par les gestionnaires de l’établissement.

O ente estadual na política de atendimento socioeducativo: desafios na implementação a partir de estudo comparativo em Minas Gerais e Rio Grande do Sul

Neste artigo, discute-se os desafios da implementação da política de atendimento socioeducativo em torno dos entes federados, proposta pela Lei 12.594/ 2012– Sistema Nacional de Atendimento Socioeducativo – SINASE. Para isso, realizou-se análise comparativa das normativas de Minas Gerais e Rio Grande do Sul a partir do olhar sobre a regulamentação do exercício profissional do agente de segurança socioeducativa, tendo por base os instrumentos institucionais: as políticas estaduais e o regimento da função de segurança socioeducativa. Identificou-se a prevalência de aspectos de segurança aos de socioeducação, o que torna a efetiva implementação do novo paradigma ainda um desafio. Apontam-se mudanças institucionais como propostas de aperfeiçoamento da política nos entes estaduais.

Multi-Agent Security System based on Neural Network Model of User's Behavior

It is proposed an agent approach for creation of intelligent intrusion detection system. The system allows detecting known type of attacks and anomalies in user activity and computer system behavior. The system includes different types of intelligent agents. The most important one is user agent based on neural network model of user behavior. Proposed approach is verified by experiments in real Intranet of Institute of Physics and Technologies of National Technical University of Ukraine "Kiev Polytechnic Institute”.

Promoting the development of secure mobile agent applications

Peer-reviewed

Securing dynamic itineraries for mobile agent applications

In this paper we present a novel mechanism for the protection of dynamic itineraries for mobile agent applications. Itineraries that are decided as the agent goes are essential in complex applications based on mobile agents, but no approach has been presented until now to protect them. We have conceived a cryptographic scheme for shielding dynamic itineraries from tampering, impersonation and disclosure. By using trust strategically, our scheme provides a balanced trade-off between flexibility and security. Our protection scheme has been thought always bearing in mind a feasible implementation, and thus facilitates the development of applications that make use of it. An example application based on a real healthcare scenario is also presented to show its operation.

Essays in heterogeneous agent macroeconomics

This thesis is comprised of three chapters. The first article studies the determinants of the labor force participation of elderly American males and investigates the factors that may account for the changes in retirement between 1950 and 2000. We develop a life-cycle general equilibrium model with endogenous retirement that embeds Social Security legislation and Medicare. Individuals are ex ante heterogeneous with respect to their preferences for leisure and face uncertainty about labor productivity, health status and out-of-pocket medical expenses. The model is calibrated to the U.S. economy in 2000 and is able to reproduce very closely the retirement behavior of the American population. It reproduces the peaks in the distribution of Social Security applications at ages 62 and 65 and the observed facts that low earners and unhealthy individuals retire earlier. It also matches very closely the increase in retirement from 1950 to 2000. Changes in Social Security policy - which became much more generous - and the introduction of Medicare account for most of the expansion of retirement. In contrast, the isolated impact of the increase in longevity was a delaying of retirement. In the second article, I develop an overlapping generations model of criminal behavior, which extends prior research on crime by taking into account individuals' labor supply decisions and the stigma effect that affects convicted offenders, lowering their likelihood of employment. I use the model to guide a quantitative assessment of the determinants of crime and of a counterfactual experiment in which an income redistribution policy is thought as an alternative to greater law enforcement. The model economy considered in this paper is populated by heterogeneous agents who live for a realistic number of periods, have preferences over consumption and leisure, and differ in terms of their age, their skills as well as their employment shocks. In addition, savings may be precautionary and allow partial insurance against the labor income shocks. Because of the lack of full insurance, this model generates an endogenous distribution of wealth across consumers, enabling us to assess the welfare implications of the redistribution policy experiment. I calibrated the model using the US data for 1980 and then use the model to investigate the changes in criminality between 1980 and 1996. The main results that come out of this study are: 1) Law enforcement policy was the most important factor behind the fall in criminality in the period, while the increase in inequality was the most important single factor promoting crime; 2) Stigmatization is not a free-cost crime control policy; 3) Income redistribution can be a powerful alternative policy to fight crime. Finally, the third article studies the impact of HIV/AIDS on per capita income and education. It explores two channels from HIV/AIDS to income that have not been sufficiently stressed by the literature: the reduction of the incentives to study due to shorter expected longevity and the reduction of productivity of experienced workers. In the model individuals live for three periods, may get infected in the second period and with some probability die of Aids before reaching the third period of their life. Parents care for the welfare of the future generations so that they will maximize lifetime utility of their dynasty. The simulations predict that the most affected countries in Sub-Saharan Africa will be in the future, on average, thirty percent poorer than they would be without AIDS. Schooling will decline in some cases by forty percent. These figures are dramatically reduced with widespread medical treatment, as it increases the survival probability and productivity of infected individuals.

Agent Based Intrusion Detection and Response System for Wireless LANs

Wireless LAN technology, despite the numerous advantages it has over competing technologies, has not seen widespread deployment. A primary reason for markets not adopting this technology is its failure to provide adequate security. Data that is sent over wireless links can be compromised with utmost ease. In this project, we propose a distributed agent based intrusion detection and response system for wireless LANs that can detect unauthorized wireless elements like access points, wireless clients that are in promiscuous mode etc. The system reacts to intrusions by either notifying the concerned personnel, in case of rogue access points and promiscuous nodes, or by blocking unauthorized users from accessing the network resources.

Distributed Hybrid Agent Based Intrusion Detection and Real Time Response System

Wireless LANs are growing rapidly and security has always been a concern. We have implemented a hybrid system, which will not only detect active attacks like identity theft causing denial of service attacks, but will also detect the usage of access point discovery tools. The system responds in real time by sending out an alert to the network administrator.

Transforming the eastern neighbourhood: the security implications of European Union Activity in Ukraine 2000-2006

This thesis examines the external activities of the European Union conducted in the wider Europe against the backdrop of eastern enlargement. It focuses on the technical aspects of EU diplomacy, using qualitative research methodology to study the programmes and initiatives launched since the year 2000 in the countries lying along the Union’s new border to the east. Drawing on evidence from Ukraine, it hypothesises that the EU is an agent of transformation in the eastern neighbourhood and that this transformation has important implications for the regional order in the post-Soviet space. The thesis constitutes an investigation into the transformational activities engaged by the EU in Ukraine conducted with an eye to their strategic implications. It documents and analyses three instances of EU intervention in Ukraine’s internal processes that relate to management of cross-border traffic in the Ukrainian-Russian borderland, restructuring of the country’s energy sector, and conduct of its contentious presidential election in 2004. It is argued that while these interventions have explicitly sought to advance the Union’s security with respect to certain twenty-first century transnational threats, they have at the same time served to confer important strategic advantages on the EU that include giving the bloc greater knowledge and control over developments in Ukraine and that contribute to the dismantling of infrastructural, institutional and other ties between Kiev and the other Soviet successor states, notably Russia. The effect of the European Union’s actions in the region, whether intended or not, has thus been to undermine any competing regional initiatives that cut across its own functions, and thereby to assert itself as the primary integration project in Europe. By showing how technical interventions in the politics, economics and administration of Ukraine can yield important geopolitical dividends, this thesis demonstrates that, in the context of EU external relations, high and low politics are interlinked.

An agent approach to improving radio frequency identification enabled Returnable Transport Equipment

Returnable transport equipment (RTE) such as pallets form an integral part of the supply chain and poor management leads to costly losses. Companies often address this matter by outsourcing the management of RTE to logistics service providers (LSPs). LSPs are faced with the task to provide logistical expertise to reduce RTE related waste, whilst differentiating their own services to remain competitive. In the current challenging economic climate, the role of the LSP to deliver innovative ways to achieve competitive advantage has never been so important. It is reported that radio frequency identification (RFID) application to RTE enables LSPs such as DHL to gain competitive advantage and offer clients improvements such as loss reduction, process efficiency improvement and effective security. However, the increased visibility and functionality of RFID enabled RTE requires further investigation in regards to decision‐making. The distributed nature of the RTE network favours a decentralised decision‐making format. Agents are an effective way to represent objects from the bottom‐up, capturing the behaviour and enabling localised decision‐making. Therefore, an agent based system is proposed to represent the RTE network and utilise the visibility and data gathered from RFID tags. Two types of agents are developed in order to represent the trucks and RTE, which have bespoke rules and algorithms in order to facilitate negotiations. The aim is to create schedules, which integrate RTE pick‐ups as the trucks go back to the depot. The findings assert that: - agent based modelling provides an autonomous tool, which is effective in modelling RFID enabled RTE in a decentralised utilising the real‐time data facility. ‐ the RFID enabled RTE model developed enables autonomous agent interaction, which leads to a feasible schedule integrating both forward and reverse flows for each RTE batch. ‐ the RTE agent scheduling algorithm developed promotes the utilisation of RTE by including an automatic return flow for each batch of RTE, whilst considering the fleet costs andutilisation rates. ‐ the research conducted contributes an agent based platform, which LSPs can use in order to assess the most appropriate strategies to implement for RTE network improvement for each of their clients.

Agent-based Anomalies Monitoring in Distributed Systems

In this paper an agent-based approach for anomalies monitoring in distributed systems such as computer networks, or Grid systems is proposed. This approach envisages on-line and off-line monitoring in order to analyze users’ activity. On-line monitoring is carried in real time, and is used to predict user actions. Off-line monitoring is done after the user has ended his work, and is based on the analysis of statistical information obtained during user’s work. In both cases neural networks are used in order to predict user actions and to distinguish normal and anomalous user behavior.

An Agent-based Classification Model

The major function of this model is to access the UCI Wisconsin Breast Cancer data-set[1] and classify the data items into two categories, which are normal and anomalous. This kind of classification can be referred as anomaly detection, which discriminates anomalous behaviour from normal behaviour in computer systems. One popular solution for anomaly detection is Artificial Immune Systems (AIS). AIS are adaptive systems inspired by theoretical immunology and observed immune functions, principles and models which are applied to problem solving. The Dendritic Cell Algorithm (DCA)[2] is an AIS algorithm that is developed specifically for anomaly detection. It has been successfully applied to intrusion detection in computer security. It is believed that agent-based modelling is an ideal approach for implementing AIS, as intelligent agents could be the perfect representations of immune entities in AIS. This model evaluates the feasibility of re-implementing the DCA in an agent-based simulation environment called AnyLogic, where the immune entities in the DCA are represented by intelligent agents. If this model can be successfully implemented, it makes it possible to implement more complicated and adaptive AIS models in the agent-based simulation environment.

DATA DRIVEN INTELLIGENT AGENT NETWORKS FOR ADAPTIVE MONITORING AND CONTROL

To analyze the characteristics and predict the dynamic behaviors of complex systems over time, comprehensive research to enable the development of systems that can intelligently adapt to the evolving conditions and infer new knowledge with algorithms that are not predesigned is crucially needed. This dissertation research studies the integration of the techniques and methodologies resulted from the fields of pattern recognition, intelligent agents, artificial immune systems, and distributed computing platforms, to create technologies that can more accurately describe and control the dynamics of real-world complex systems. The need for such technologies is emerging in manufacturing, transportation, hazard mitigation, weather and climate prediction, homeland security, and emergency response. Motivated by the ability of mobile agents to dynamically incorporate additional computational and control algorithms into executing applications, mobile agent technology is employed in this research for the adaptive sensing and monitoring in a wireless sensor network. Mobile agents are software components that can travel from one computing platform to another in a network and carry programs and data states that are needed for performing the assigned tasks. To support the generation, migration, communication, and management of mobile monitoring agents, an embeddable mobile agent system (Mobile-C) is integrated with sensor nodes. Mobile monitoring agents visit distributed sensor nodes, read real-time sensor data, and perform anomaly detection using the equipped pattern recognition algorithms. The optimal control of agents is achieved by mimicking the adaptive immune response and the application of multi-objective optimization algorithms. The mobile agent approach provides potential to reduce the communication load and energy consumption in monitoring networks. The major research work of this dissertation project includes: (1) studying effective feature extraction methods for time series measurement data; (2) investigating the impact of the feature extraction methods and dissimilarity measures on the performance of pattern recognition; (3) researching the effects of environmental factors on the performance of pattern recognition; (4) integrating an embeddable mobile agent system with wireless sensor nodes; (5) optimizing agent generation and distribution using artificial immune system concept and multi-objective algorithms; (6) applying mobile agent technology and pattern recognition algorithms for adaptive structural health monitoring and driving cycle pattern recognition; (7) developing a web-based monitoring network to enable the visualization and analysis of real-time sensor data remotely. Techniques and algorithms developed in this dissertation project will contribute to research advances in networked distributed systems operating under changing environments.

[child Protection Network And The Intersector Implementation Of The Circle Of Security As Alternatives To Medication].

To describe the clinical history of a child with aggressive behavior and recurring death-theme speech, and report the experience of the team of authors, who proposed an alternative to medication through the establishment of a protection network and the inter-sector implementation of the circle of security concept. A 5-year-old child has a violent and aggressive behavior at the day-care. The child was diagnosed by the healthcare center with depressive disorder and behavioral disorder, and was medicated with sertraline and risperidone. Side effects were observed, and the medications were discontinued. Despite several actions, such as talks, teamwork, psychological and psychiatric follow-up, the child's behavior remained unchanged. A unique therapeutic project was developed by Universidade Estadual de Campinas' Medical School students in order to establish a connection between the entities responsible for the child's care (daycare center, healthcare center, and family). Thus, the team was able to develop a basic care protection network. The implementation of the inter-sector circle of security, as well as the communication and cooperation among the teams, produced very favorable results in this case. This initiative was shown to be a feasible and effective alternative to the use of medication for this child.

Bonding agent underneath sealant: shear bond strength to oil-contaminated

This study evaluated in vitro the shear bond strength of a resin-based pit-and-fissure sealant (Fluroshield - F) associated with either an ethanol-based (Adper Single Bond 2 - SB) or an acetone-based (Prime & Bond - PB) adhesive system under conditions of oil contamination. Mesial and distal enamel surfaces from 30 sound third molars were randomly assigned to 2 groups (n=30): I - no oil contamination; II - oil contamination. Contamination (0.25 mL during 10 s) was performed after 37% phosphoric acid etching with an air/oil spray. The specimens were randomly assigned to subgroups, according to the bonding protocol adopted: subgroup A - F was applied to enamel without an intermediate bonding agent layer; In subgroups B and C, SB and PB, respectively, were applied, light-cured, and then F was applied and light-cured. Shear bond strength was tested at a crosshead speed of 0.5 mm/min in a universal testing machine. Means (± SD) in MPa were: IA-11.28 (±1.84); IIA-12.02 (±1.15); IB-9.73 (±2.38); IIB-9.62 (±2.29); IC-28.30 (±1.63); and IIC-25.50 (±1.91). It may be concluded that the oil contamination affected negatively the sealant bonding to enamel and the acetone-based adhesive system (PB) layer applied underneath the sealant was able to prevent its deleterious effects to adhesion.