Post-conflict justice and sustainable peace

No systematic study has examined the effect of post-conflict justice on the duration of peace on a global basis. This paper attempts to fill that void by building on a newly constructed dataset (Binningsbo, Elster, and Gates 2005), which reports the presence of various forms of post-conflict justice efforts (trials, purges, reparation to victims, and truth commissions) as well as processes associated with abstaining from post-conflict justice (amnesty and exile). It investigates the long-term effects of post-conflict justice on the duration of peace after conflict. It uses a Cox proportional hazard model to analyze the influence of the various types of post-conflict justice on the length of the peace period before the recurrence of violent conflict. Post-conflict trials as well as other types of justice do lead to a more durable peace in democratic as well as non-democratic societies, but the results are weak and are therefore difficult to generalize. Forms of non-retributive justice (that is, reparations to victims and truth commissions), however, are strongly associated with the duration of peace in democratic societies, but are not significant for non-democratic societies. Amnesty tends to be destabilizing and generally associated with shorter peace duration, but exile tends to lead to a more durable peace.Social Conflict and Violence,Post Conflict Reintegration,Peace & Peacekeeping,Corruption & Anitcorruption Law,Education and Society

Creating a Love of Reading Through Young Adult Fiction in Norwegian Lower Secondary Schools

Creating a love of reading is important for students to develop early to prepare them for academia and their work life is also mentioned by UDIR. With the concept love of reading there is an implied intrinsic motivation to read, which is why the thesis will look at motivational factors that impede or facilitate motivation to read. The introduction of the new curriculum in 2020, also brought with it updates to the competency aims, which made Young Adult fiction a concrete part of the curriculum for secondary school students. For that reason, the thesis will look at YAF as a genre and how The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, a YAF novel by Sherman Alexie, through pedagogical means can motivate students to read and create a love of reading for secondary schools students

Islam’s Link to Terror—A Psychology of Denial

This positional paper examines mental health issues associated with terrorism, the psychological social and interpersonal dynamics of self-deception, delusion, and denial; and it offers analytical argument, sociological perspective, and comparative theologic analysis and commentary on the epistemology of Islam and radical Islamic terrorism. The disputatious assertion that terrorism has nothing to do with Islam is examined from an evidentiary criminal prima facie perspective. Islam is conceptually linked to various affiliate terrorist groups by its mutual sociology, derivative core ideology, and by its endogenous religious operational authority derived from the Koran. Islamic violence is not limited to terrorism. The feasibility of Islam embracing spiritual reformation is examined. Global terrorism needs to be fought both on the ground and with multifaceted societal strategies that challenge and defeat the ideologic presuppositional arguments that fuel terrorism

Improved quality with better user interface in transport models?

This study discusses the challenge transport analysts face when using the Norwegian Regional Transport Model (RTM) and it’s user interface. The aim of this study is to iden????fy typical challenges the users face when using a transport model like RTM, and discuss possible changes in future development of the transport model for be????er usability. A review of the user support issues from 2013 to 2014 (N=62) shows that 63 % of all requests were related to the methods and procedures in the model and uncertainty on how to approach those methods in a analysis. 26 % of the requests were caused by direct and systema????c errors in the input data. The conclusion of the study is that the models user interface should be developed to help the user be????er understand the methodology of the transport model

How a Control Plane Policed DDoS Attack Impacts the Latency of Time-Critical Offshore IoT Traffic

5G har nylig blitt introdusert, noe som vil gjøre det mulig å bruke tids-kritiske applikasjoner som har strenge krav til pålitelighet og forsinkelse. Applikasjoner som har slike krav er også kjent som applikasjoner som krever ultra robust sanntids-kommunikasjon (URLLC) for å fungere. Flere bransjer har allerede tatt i bruk Tingenes Internet (IoT) og trådløs kommunikasjon for å overvåke og styre ulike prosesser og operasjoner, men dette har ikke blitt tatt i bruk i tilsvarende grad i offshore-industrien enda. Selv om platformene er delvis isolert og lokalisert langt til havs, viser det seg at tidskritiske applikasjoner kan være både aktuelle og interessante, også her. På en annen side er dette også utfordrende, grunnet applikasjonenes strenge krav til maksimal forsinkelse. Lengre avstander utgjør lenger reisetid for signalene. De lange avstandende kan i seg selv utgjøre en forsinkelse som i mange tilfeller kan overskride den maksimale toleransen til den gitte applikasjonen. Derfor er det ikke slik at alle applikasjoner kan brukes på alle lokasjoner. IoT brukes allerede i forbindelse med førerløse kjøretøy samt i smarte strømmålere, som de fleste norske husstander har fått implementert de siste årene. I de fleste tilfeller gjør teknologien at ting blir enklere, men det følger også en bakside med slik digitalisering. Jo flere enheter som kobles til Internet, desto flere enheter kan bli brukt i nettbaserte angrep. Det er en kjent sak at enhetene som benyttes i IoT har en relativt begrenset mengde ressurser og dårlig sikkerhet, og kan enkelt bli overstyrt av en angriper. I nyere tid har antallet (distribuerte) tjenestenektangrep (DDoS) skutt i været og mange av dem er svært kraftige. Dette gjøres kun for å hindre nyttetrafikken i å nå frem til den ønskede destinasjonen og påvirker systemets tilgjengelighet og regnes som et sikkerhetsbrudd. Control Plane Policing er introdusert som en mekanisme som kan brukes til å prioritere viktigere trafikk foran annen trafikk for å redusere forsinkelse. Dette er for eksempel også nyttig med tanke på ressursallokering i nettet og for å filtrere ut angrepstrafikk. Etter å ha kjørt simuleringer av en router både med og uten denne mekanismen, kan man konkludere med at det er mulig å ta i bruk tidskritiske applikasjoner offshore på flere lokasjoner, bortsett fra de lengst fra land. Reisedistanse og forsinkelse vil avhenge av lokasjon og antall noder i nettverket. Simuleringene viser også at det kan være nyttig å implementere en slik mekanisme i ruterene for å holde i gang tidskritisk datatrafikk selv under et tjenestenektangrep og for å la den tidskritiske trafikken flyte igjennom tilnærmet upåvirket av annen trafikk.Recently, 5G have been introduced as an enabler of time-critical applications with strict Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC) requirements. Several industrial sites use Internet of Things (IoT) to monitor and even control processes and objects either onsite or remotely using wireless communication. However, this have yet to be deployed in the offshore industry. There is no doubt that time-critical and mission-critical applications could be both interesting and useful for this partly isolated offshore industry. Although, several of the URLLC use cases have strict requirements withregards to latency. This is a challenge since the location of the offshore platforms are both isolated and far from everything. The longer the distance, the bigger the propagation delay, which further affect what applications that can be deployed at these locations. IoT networks have been deployed successfully at several locations. Smart Power Grids and Autonomous Vehicles in Smart Cities are among the widely known IoT use cases. However, as more and more devices are connecting to the Internet, the attack surface keeps growing. It is commonly known that IoT devices are constrained in terms of resources, and hence easy for an adversary to take over and use as zombie devices that does whatever the attacker instruct them to do. Distributed Denial-of-Service(DDoS) attacks are one of the cyberattacks that is drastically increasing in both number of attacks as well as in strength. Such attacks can flood the network with excess traffic and can in many cases obstruct the legitimate data flows of reaching its destination and compromising the system’s availability. Control Plane Policing have been introduced as an mechanism that can prioritize traffic to reduce delay, allocate resources, but it can also be used to drop DDoS attack traffic and allow legitimate traffic through. By performing simulations of a router with and without a control plane policing mechanism, it is concluded that it is possible to deploy time-critical applications on offshore facilities at several locations, depending on the number of network nodes and the propagation distances in the network. The simulations also shows that Control Plane Policing can be useful to keep the time-critical data flows going for as long as possible, even during a DDoS attack

Is Managerial Ownership a Determinant of Cash Holdings? : An Empirical Investigation of Corporations Listed at the Oslo Stock Exchange.

Masteroppgave(MSc) in Master of Science in Finance - Handelshøyskolen BI, 2016In this master thesis, we investigate managerial ownership as a possible determinant of corporate cash holdings in a sample of Norwegian corporations listed at the Oslo Stock Exchange. We focus on the importance of managerial ownership as a disciplinary factor with respect to how companies deploy cash, in addition to interrelated factors such as corporate governance and controlling owners, leverage, and growth opportunities. We fail to find evidence in support of managerial ownership affecting cash holdings when we only control for general firm-specific characteristics. However, under some circumstances, i.e. when we interact managerial ownership with a proxy for growth opportunities (MKTBOOK), we find that managerial ownership has a significant negative effect on cash holdings. Given that our empirical findings, to a large extent, do not support a statistically significant relationship between managerial ownership and cash holdings, we cannot unambiguously motivate and recommend initiation of managerial ownership with the purpose of solving a potential agency conflict between shareholders and managers

Secondary school students’ perception of health and teaching of health dimensions in physical education

Physical education (PE) aims to promote health and strengthen students’ health resources, and the concept of health is a central part of PE curricula. However, little is known about how students understand health and experience teaching related to the concept of health in PE. Purpose This study aims to provide insight into how students understand the concept of health and how they experience and perceive teaching about health dimensions in PE. Participants A sample of 10th graders was recruited from two primary schools in Norway. Data collection and analysis Three focus group interviews were conducted with 12 students (5 boys) in 10th grade (15-16 years old). The first focus group consisted of five girls, the second of four boys, and the third of two girls and one boy. The students were asked to reflect on and discuss what health is, how it can be promoted, and their experiences of learning and teaching health in PE. The interviews were recorded using a voice recorder and lasted for between 40 and 55 min. The transcripts were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Analysis Through the analysis, we interpreted that students mainly focused on the physical dimension of health but became aware of the mental dimension when they discussed and reflected during interviews. Overall, students found the term health to be complex and somewhat difficult to understand. The students experienced little or no development of their health competence through PE. Although they considered that it was important to learn about health, they were concerned that, if more learning about health was implemented in PE, this would make the subject more theoretical and result in less movement and practical activities. Further, the strong activity discourse in PE is discussed in relation to students’ health perceptions. Final reflections Although curricula in PE seem to be developing towards a holistic perspective on health, students do not seem to understand health from this perspective. It seems that they encounter a biomedical approach to health and that PE teachers emphasize the physical dimension of health in teaching. The students' understanding of the concept of learning as theoretical and the teachers' instrumental teaching about health in PE could substantiate a narrow view of health in PE. To promote learning about health from a more holistic perspective, the learning focus of the subject should be highlighted. Furthermore, pedagogical approaches that aim to increase students' reflections and experiences of various dimensions of health through practical learning processes should be emphasized.publishedVersio

Reinforcement Learning and Predictive Safety Filtering for Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Control

Kunstig intelligens blir sett på som et av de mest betydningsfulle sprangene innen teknologi de siste årene. Underkategorien forsterkende læring har vist eksepsjonelle resultater for problemer som tidligere var antatt umulige. Samtidig er en av de største bekymringene med metoder innen forsterkende læring knyttet til en fullstendig mangel på garantier for ytelse og sikkerhet. Dette har begrenset bruken av metoden i sikkerhetskritiske applikasjoner. Forskningen som presenteres i denne teskten prøver å løse problemet ved å utvikle et rammeverk som kombinerer forsterkende læring med en tilpasset versjon av modell prediktiv kontroll. Kontrolalgoritmen har fått navnet prediktivt sikkerhetsfilter, og brukes i rammeverket på grunn av filters evne til tilfredstille beskraninger og garantere stabilitet. Rammeverket har som mål å bygge bro mellom forskning og virkelige applikasjoner for sikker bruk av forsterkende læring. Grunnet den store veksten innen utenskjærs vindkraft, i både norsk og internasjonal industri, ble rammeverket anvendt på en flytende vindturbin for å undersøke dets ytelse og anvendbarhet. Den kompliserte dynamikken til vindturbiner fremmer bruken av læringsbaserte metoder, noe som eliminerer behovet for dyre og tidkrevende utledninger av matematiske modeller. Vi viser at bruk av rammeverket kan sikre mot brudd av beskrankninger når en forsterkningslæringsagent styrer turbinen - både under trening og etter utplassering. I tillegg viser vi at det prediktive sikkerhetsfilteret kan akselererer læringen i noen tilfeller. Rammeverket RL-PSF (Teigen and Malmin, 2021) er skrevet i Python, og er offentlig tilgjengelig som åpen kildekode under GNU General Public License. Implementeringen er designet for å være svært modulær, i den forstand at den kan brukes med en hvilken som helst læringsbasert regulator og ikke er domene- eller applikasjonsspesifikk. Dette vil muliggjøre videre forskning innen fagområdet sikker kunstig intelligens.Artificial intelligence is seen as one of the most significant leaps in technology in recent years, with the subcategory of reinforcement learning showing exceptional results for previously thought-to-be impossible problems. However, one of the major concerns with reinforcement learning methods is related to a complete lack of guarantees on their performance and safety. This has limited their use in safety critical and high-stakes real-life applications. To this end, our research attempts to address the issue by developing a framework for combining reinforcement learning with an adaptation of model predictive control called the predictive safety filter. The framework, capable of guaranteeing stability and constraint satisfaction, will bridge the gap between research and real-world applications. The framework is applied to a floating offshore wind turbine, due to their increasing importance and significance in both Norwegian and international industry. The complicated and constantly evolving dynamics of wind turbines promote the use of learning-based methods, eliminating the need for expensive and time consuming derivations of mathematical models. We show that applying our method can ensure constraint satisfaction both during the training and after the deployment of a reinforcement learning agent controlling the turbine. We also show that the predictive safety filter in some cases accelerates the learning. The framework RL-PSF (Teigen and Malmin, 2021) is written in Python, and is publicly available as open-source code under the GNU General Public License. The implementation is designed to be highly modular, in the sense that it can be used with any learning-based controller and is not domain or application specific. This will enable further research in the field of safe artificial intelligence

Perceptions of Peace Agreements and Political Trust in Post-War Guatemala, Nepal, and Northern Ireland

(Re)gaining citizens’ trust is a challenge for post-war governments. Political trust is crucial for understanding both the risk of civil war in the first place and the state-society relationships that emerge afterwards. Peace agreements are tools to stop the fighting, address war’s injustices, and provide a blueprint for the state’s future – and they do so to varying degrees. Yet we have little systematic knowledge of how people react to such agreements and with what consequences. We argue that in post-war societies, people’s perceptions of the strategies aimed at ending the violence and (re)building the state have an enduring impact on people’s view of the state. In this study, we examine the association between post-conflict political trust and people’s approval of peace agreements analyzing a set of nationally representative, comparative surveys from Guatemala, Nepal, and Northern Ireland, three cases where long civil wars were ended by peace agreements. We find that individuals’ approval of the agreement and the perception that it has been implemented are positively associated with political trust, and that accounting for views of the peace agreement substantially improve on conventional explanations for political trust.acceptedVersio

Wartime Experiences and Popular Support for Peace Agreements: Comparative Evidence from Three Cases

Peace agreements are negotiated and signed by representatives of the government and the rebels, often after many years of violent conflict, but their ability to transform a war-torn society hinges on the approval of ordinary people. Yet we have little systematic knowledge of what ordinary people think of peace agreements in the long run. This study begins to fill that gap, drawing on a set of comparative public opinion surveys from Guatemala, Nepal, and Northern Ireland, three cases where long civil wars were ended by peace agreements. The peace agreements in these countries have strong popular support, though there is variation across specific provisions. Across these cases, our findings suggest that legacies of violence are not generally associated with long-term support for peace agreements. However, when we look at provisions that grant concessions to the rebels, there is some evidence of lasting legacies.acceptedVersio