Policy Violations Research Articles

Time Will Tell: The Case for an Idiographic Approach to Behavioral Cybersecurity Research

Many of the theories used in behavioral cybersecurity research have been applied with a nomothetic approach, which is characterized by cross-sectional data (e.g., one-time surveys) that identify patterns across a population of individuals. Although this can provide valuable between-person, point-in-time insights (e.g., employees who use neutralization techniques, such as denying responsibility for cybersecurity policy violations, tend to comply less), it is unable to reveal within-person patterns that account for varying experiences and situations over time. This paper articulates why an idiographic approach, which undertakes a within-person analysis of longitudinal data, can: (1) help validate widely used theories in behavioral cybersecurity research that imply patterns of behavior within a given person over time and (2) provide distinct theoretical insights on behavioral cybersecurity phenomena by accounting for such within-person patterns. To these ends, we apply an idiographic approach to an established theory in behavioral cybersecurity research—neutralization theory—and empirically test a within-person variant of this theory using a four-week experience sampling study. Our results support a more granular application of neutralization theory in the cybersecurity context that considers the behavior of a given person over time. We conclude the paper by highlighting the contexts and theories that provide the most promising opportunities for future behavioral cybersecurity research using an idiographic approach.

Ten tips to make difficult conversations easier

Academia offers plenty of rewarding pleasures; consider commencement, award ceremonies, and student “a‐ha” moments, among others. We also face daily stresses and challenges. One less rewarding academic duty is the delivery of difficult news. This need arises for multiple reasons, including policy violations, negative performance reviews, academic dishonesty, and conflict resolution.

Ten tips to make difficult conversations easier

Academia offers plenty of rewarding pleasures, including commencement, awards ceremonies, and student “a‐ha” moments, among others. We also face daily stresses and challenges. One less rewarding academic duty is the delivery of difficult news. This need arises for multiple reasons, including policy violations, negative performance reviews, academic dishonesty, and conflict resolution.

10 tips to make difficult conversations easier

Academia offers plenty of rewarding pleasures; consider commencement, award ceremonies, and student “a‐ha” moments, among others. We also face daily stresses and challenges. One less rewarding academic duty is the delivery of difficult news. This need arises for multiple reasons, including policy violations, negative performance reviews, academic dishonesty, and conflict resolution.

Does self-affirmation augment the effects of a mandated personalized feedback intervention? A randomized controlled trial with heavy drinking college students.

Theory and evidence indicate that affirming the value of the self before exposure to a threatening message fosters more open-minded appraisal of message content. We predicted that college students mandated to a computer-delivered personalized feedback intervention (PFI) and who engaged in a self-affirmation (SA) exercise would demonstrate reduce drinking and consequences relative to those who received an attention control. Participants were 484 undergraduates (age 18-24, 56% male, 78% White) mandated to participate in an alcohol intervention following a first-time alcohol policy violation. After a baseline assessment, each was randomized to SA (n = 256) or attention control (n = 227) prior to a computer-delivered PFI intervention. Posttest measures included an affirmation manipulation check; primary outcomes (past month weekly quantity, peak drinks, binge frequency, consequences) were assessed at 1-, 3-, 6-, 9-, and 12-month follow-ups. We used latent growth curve modeling to test study hypotheses. The SA exercise increased positive self-evaluation at posttest (p < .001). Overall reductions in drinking and consequences were observed at early follow-up (all p < .05), but the SA manipulation was not associated with intercept or slope factor differences in the models. Engaging in assessments during COVID restrictions was generally associated with reduced drinking and consequences. The SA exercise did not differentially affect trajectories of alcohol use and consequences, despite evidence that the exercise had the predicted effect on participant's self-evaluations. The lack of SA effects could be attributed to a nonthreatening PFI intervention that is generally accepted among mandated students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Securing Pacemakers using Runtime Monitors over Physiological Signals

Wearable and implantable medical devices (IMDs) are increasingly deployed to diagnose, monitor, and provide therapy for critical medical conditions. Such medical devices are safety-critical cyber-physical systems (CPSs). These systems support wireless features introducing potential security vulnerabilities. Although these devices undergo rigorous safety certification processes, runtime security attacks are inevitable. Based on published literature, IMDs such as pacemakers and insulin infusion systems can be remotely controlled to inject deadly electric shocks and excess insulin, posing a threat to a patient’s life. While prior works based on formal methods have been proposed to detect potential attack vectors using different forms of static analysis, these have limitations in preventing attacks at runtime. This paper discusses a formal framework for detecting cyber-physical attacks on a pacemaker by monitoring its security policies at runtime. We propose a wearable device that senses the Electrocardiogram (ECG) and Photoplethysmogram (PPG) of the body to detect attacks in a pacemaker. To facilitate the design of this device, we map the security policies of a pacemaker w.r.t ECG and PPG, paving the way for designing formal verification monitors for pacemakers for the first time using multiple physiological signals. The proposed monitoring framework allows the synthesis of parallel monitors from a given set of desired security policies, where all the monitors execute concurrently and generate an alarm to the user in the case of policy violation. Our implementation and the performance evaluation results demonstrate the technical feasibility of designing such a wearable device for attack detection in pacemakers. This device is separate from the pacemaker, ensuring no need for re-certification of pacemakers. Our approach is amenable to the application of security patches when new attack vectors are detected, making the approach ideal for runtime monitoring of medical CPSs.

Investigate the Roles of Sanctions, Psychological Capital, and Organizational Security Resources Factors in Information Security Policy Violation

Investigate the Roles of Sanctions, Psychological Capital, and Organizational Security Resources Factors in Information Security Policy Violation

Not all information security-related stresses are equal: the effects of challenge and hindrance stresses on employees’ compliance with information security policies

ABSTRACT Information security-related stresses (SRSs) are widely considered to play a negative role in the workplace, motivating employees' violation of information security policies (ISPs). However, researchers have neglected to challenge SRS and its role in promoting positive security actions. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the effect of both challenge and hindrance SRSs on employees' intention to comply with ISPs and the moderating mechanisms of regulatory focus in the relationship between SRSs and ISP compliance. Using survey data from 489 employees in Chinese enterprises, we applied a PLS-SEM method to test hypotheses. Our study found that the hindrance SRS had a negative effect on ISP compliance intention, differently, challenge SRS motivates employees to comply with ISPs. Our study also found prevention focus acted as a positive moderator in the relationship between hindrance SRS and compliance intention, while promotion focus had no effect on this relationship; Promotion focus positively moderated the relationship between challenge SRS and compliance intention, and prevention focus negatively moderated the relationship between challenge SRS and compliance intention. These findings provide new knowledge by examining the different effects and the boundary conditions to understand how two types of SRS influence employees' informaiton security dicisions.

Should German Courts Review Competition Law Awards on the Merits? Significance of the German Federal Supreme Court’s Decision of 27 September 2022

The extent to which courts are allowed to review arbitral awards for public policy violations in annulment or enforcement proceedings is a controversial topic. Recently, the German Federal Supreme Court (BGH) conducted an exhaustive judicial review of an award (referred to as a ‘Révision au fond’), assessing its potential breach of competition law within the framework of Germany’s public policy. This marks the first time in more than five decades that Germany’s highest civil court has taken an unambiguous stance in the ongoing discourse. Even though BGH decisions have no binding effect for lower courts in Germany, it can be expected that other German courts will follow the decision for the purpose of a uniform application of the law. This article analyses whether German courts should take the BGH’s decision as guidance and similarly conduct a Révision au fond of arbitral awards relating to competition law. It is concluded that the BGH’s decision is not in line with the internationally prevalent view that a Révision au fond is to be prohibited. Moreover, the justifications provided by the court for conducting a Révision au fond are found to be only partly convincing. In fact, there are several points in which the BGH’s approach can be countered by arguments in support of a merely limited review. Révision au fond, full review, competition law, antitrust, BGH, public policy, ordre public, cartel senate, finality of awards, Germany

Identification and Characterization of Synthetic Nicotine Product Promotion and Sales on Instagram Using Natural Language Processing.

There has been a rapid proliferation of synthetic nicotine products in recent years, despite newly established regulatory authority and limited research into its health risks. Previous research has implicated social media platforms as an avenue for nicotine product unregulated sales. Yet, little is known about synthetic nicotine product content on social media. We utilized natural language processing to characterize the sales of synthetic nicotine products on Instagram. We collected Instagram posts by querying Instagram hashtags (eg, "#tobaccofreenicotine) related to synthetic nicotine. Using Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, collected posts were categorized into thematically related topic clusters. Posts within topic clusters relevant to study aims were then manually annotated for variables related to promotion and selling (eg, cost discussion, contact information for offline sales). A total of 7425 unique posts were collected with 2219 posts identified as related to promotion and selling of synthetic nicotine products. Nicotine pouches (52.9%, n = 1174), electronic nicotine delivery systems (30.6%, n = 679), and flavored e-liquids (14.1%, n = 313) were most commonly promoted. About 16.1% (n = 345) of posts contained embedded hyperlinks and 5.8% (n = 129) provided contact information for purported offline transactions. Only 17.6% (n = 391) of posts contained synthetic nicotine-specific health warnings. In the United States, synthetic nicotine products can only be legally marketed if they have received premarket authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Despite these prohibitions, Instagram appears to be a hub for potentially unregulated sales of synthetic and "tobacco-free" products. Efforts are needed by platforms and regulators to enhance content moderation and prevent unregulated online sales of existing and emerging synthetic nicotine products. There is limited clinical understanding of synthetic nicotine's unique health risks and how these novel products are changing over time due to regulatory oversight. Despite synthetic nicotine-specific regulatory measures, such as the requirement for premarket authorization and FDA warning letters issued to unauthorized sellers, access to and promotion of synthetic nicotine is widely occurring on Instagram, a platform with over 2 billion users and one that is popular among youth and young adults. Activities include direct-to-consumer sales from questionable sources, inadequate health warning disclosure, and exposure with limited age restrictions, all conditions necessary for the sale of various tobacco products. Notably, the number of these Instagram posts increased in response to the announcement of new FDA regulations. In response, more robust online monitoring, content moderation, and proactive enforcement are needed from platforms who should work collaboratively with regulators to identify, report, and remove content in clear violation of platform policies and federal laws. Regulatory implementation and enforcement should prioritize digital platforms as conduits for unregulated access to synthetic nicotine products and other future novel and emerging tobacco products.

Systemic Functional Linguistic Approach to Language Policy-Problems in Sri Lanka: From Colonialism to Post-war Reconciliation

There is a vast body of literature on Language Policy (LP) produced during the last six decades in the newly independent countries from colonial subjugation. Language policy as an umbrella term penetrates several other areas. The present study has been confined to the problems of language status planning in Sri Lanka. This research was conducted to scrutinise LP-relevant problems in the light of Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) theory and give a fresh insight into the existing problems based on the SFL approach for Sri Lankan LP ecology. The study is mostly a qualitative study that hardly utilises quantitative data. Apart from the secondary data sources, in-depth interviews were used as an interactive data collection instrument. Almost all the analyses are thematic apart from very few other types of analyses such as content analysis. Among the significant findings of this study, suppression of vernaculars during the colonial language status planning efforts and building up the feeling of superiority and inferiority based on language status planning are identified. This situation has further been established by pitching it to growthism and classism. The present study has also recognised bundles of LP-relevant real-world problems that occurred due to LP adoptions in and around LP practices. At the macro level, the lack of human, financial and material resources, violation of official language policy, the poor language proficiency of public officers, the gap between policies and implementation, lack of official language policy awareness, and legislative and machinery issues were identified. Among the other major problems, polarising linguistic communities, marginalising tiny language communities, lack of language skills of public officers, lack of officers to implement the LP, insufficient training given to the public service, lack of physical resources, resourcing LP implementing bodies poorly, and receiving public service merely in majority’s language in some places are influential findings. Several rank scales and system networks of the LP practices within the new model have been introduced to better reflect the problems systemically with some other exploratory tools. Significantly, the present study has yielded a new model which is called Cyclical Functional Model for LP in Sri Lanka. The researcher has given an entirely new insight into Sri Lankan LP ecology based on SFL. The appliable possibility that was introduced by M. A. K. Halliday to expand the SFL theory as a holistic model was the justification of this theoretical expansion. The researcher has also been able to demonstrate a causal relationship among the factors/entities from socio-political background to immediate factors involved in language policy-making, and from the language policy itself to the current social problems. The current study further concludes that the country started with some critical monolingual language policy discourse, and has moved to a fertile situation where the languages are considered as resources in principle in its orientation, nonetheless still they appear as written policies that are yet to seek practical realisations to stabilise this language ecology of the country.

Making the match and breaking it: values, perceptions, and obstacles of trainees applying into physician-scientist training programs

BackgroundReplenishing the physician-scientist workforce constitutes a central mission of medical education, but the loss of qualified trainees to non-academic positions remains an ongoing threat. Among the barriers facing physician-scientists today is the game-like model of U.S. medical residency matching through the National Research Matching Program (NRPM), which applies several assumptions regarding the comparability of applicant qualifications, cohort size, and the institutional breadth of applicants’ training needs.MethodsThe current report therefore summarizes the survey-based views and experiences of physician-scientist trainees obtained following the 2021–2022 application cycle for research-oriented residency programs, or physician-scientist training programs (PSTPs). From among this small cohort of applicants, we obtained survey-based feedback of 27 PSTP applicants across 17 U.S. medical universities, among whom 85% (23/27) matched into a PSTP.ResultsAmong these PSTP applicants, 25/27 (93%) recognized “scientific community” as the most important feature of a postgraduate training program, with applicants identifying as female placing a higher value on the program’s infrastructure of personal and/or family support. Most (18/27) respondents found “waiting for interviews” as the most stressful phase of their application cycle, and roughly half of all respondents encountered at least one NRMP policy violation through post-interview communication. Specifically, 93% (25/27) respondents were contacted by at least one PSTP following interviews, and 1/3 of them admitted to feeling pressured into sharing their ranking preferences.ConclusionWe highlight many previously unrecognized priorities among applicants to PSTPs, which include fostering community among its trainees and reinforcing structured mentoring. We uncover an inconsistency among PSTPs regarding the post-interview process, which represents an opportunity to better support applicants seeking to gauge programs according to their clinical, scientific, and academic interests as physician-scientists, while still adhering to NRMP policies.

Detecting and identifying the reasons for deleted tweets before they are posted.

Social media platforms empower us in several ways, from information dissemination to consumption. While these platforms are useful in promoting citizen journalism, public awareness, etc., they have misuse potential. Malicious users use them to disseminate hate speech, offensive content, rumor, etc. to promote social and political agendas or to harm individuals, entities, and organizations. Oftentimes, general users unconsciously share information without verifying it or unintentionally post harmful messages. Some of such content often gets deleted either by the platform due to the violation of terms and policies or by users themselves for different reasons, e.g., regret. There is a wide range of studies in characterizing, understanding, and predicting deleted content. However, studies that aim to identify the fine-grained reasons (e.g., posts are offensive, hate speech, or no identifiable reason) behind deleted content are limited. In this study, we address an existing gap by identifying and categorizing deleted tweets, especially within the Arabic context. We label them based on fine-grained disinformation categories. We have curated a dataset of 40K tweets, annotated with both coarse and fine-grained labels. Following this, we designed models to predict the likelihood of tweets being deleted and to identify the potential reasons for their deletion. Our experiments, conducted using a variety of classic and transformer models, indicate that performance surpasses the majority baseline (e.g., 25% absolute improvement for fine-grained labels). We believe that such models can assist in moderating social media posts even before they are published.

The role of ethical climates in employee information security policy violations

In the context of information security, the organizational social environment plays an important role in deterring employee violations of the Information Security Policy (ISP). As extant research has not yet determined the role ethical climates may play, this study seeks to understand their influence on employee ISP violations. To this end, we classified ISPs into two major categories: those related to communal information technology (IT) resources in the organization, such as databases or software applications, and those related to connective IT resources, such as email or Internet access. Then, we explored how rules-, performance-, and friendship-oriented organizational ethical climates affect ISP violations. Based on a survey of 177 professionals employed in the United States, we found that rules-oriented and friendship-oriented ethical climates deter ISP violations, whereas a performance-oriented one does not. Moreover, rules- and friendship-oriented ethical climates lead to fewer communal ISP violations, while performance-oriented ethical climates lead to more connectivity ISP violations. These findings underscore the importance of considering the type of IT resources that an ISP aims to protect as well as the ethical climate of an organization in order to better understand the causes of ISP violations.

Trust aware cryptographic role based access control scheme for secure cloud data storage

Cloud data storage lets customers store vast amounts of data cheaply on demand. Cryptographic role-based access control (RBAC) systems preserve cloud data privacy by restricting access to users. This study develops a trust model to reason about and improve data security in cryptographic RBAC cloud storage systems. The trust degrees of the user determine the access rights to the data and are performed by User Activity Monitoring Agent (UAMA). Two different misconducts of users such as access policy violation and data leakage affect the trust degree of the user, which in turn upgrades the access policy. In addition, the user has to decrypt the data for gaining information from it, which is a second line of security. The performance of trust based RBAC scheme is evaluated with respect to different parameters such as illegitimate user detection, memory consumption, data storage with retrieval time and the proposed work performs better.

Assessing the Implementation of University Management Strategies for Combating Examination Misconduct in Tanzanian Universities

This study assessed the implementation of university management strategies for combating examination misconduct in Tanzanian universities. It was guided by the Theory of Planned Behaviour developed by Ajzen in 1991. The study employed a convergent research design under mixed methods research approach. The target population was 27 universities, 51,489 students, 708 lecturers, 27 Chief examination officers and 27 Directors of quality assurance from which the sample size of 460 was selected through probability and non-probability sampling procedures. A questionnaire, document analysis guide and interview guide were used to collect data. Source triangulation and research experts ensured validity. Reliability was ensured through Cronbach alpha and intercoder agreement techniques. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics whereas qualitative data was analysed through thematic analysis. The study found that strategies such as penalties for examination offenders and checking for student’ illegal material were moderately implemented and there was a significant relationship between the levels of implementation of university management strategies for combating examination misconduct and the occurrence of various forms of examination misconduct in Tanzanian universities. The study concluded that university management strategies are not effectively implemented and there is a significant relationship between the levels of implementation of university management strategies and the occurrence of various forms of examination misconduct. The study recommends that universities in Tanzania in collaboration with Tanzania Commission for Universities should review and/or formulate academic integrity policies that will specify and uphold universities’ ethical principles and values as well as practices of appropriate examination conduct for handling policy violations to realize quality examinations

Policy Imperatives: A Case of Gender Non-Conforming Learners

As the Bill of Rights prescribed by the South African Constitution stipulates, all people, irrespective of gender, race and religion, have a right to equal opportunities. This is articulated by the Gender Schema Theory as it stipulates that some cohorts of learners are aligned to socially accepted behaviours while other gender aschematic learners perform parallel to socially recognized behaviours. Therefore, all learners are entitled to equal treatment and they have a right to education, especially because South Africa is a country renowned for its rainbow-nation characteristic, allowing it to accommodate diverse citizens. It is for this reason that this paper investigated whether school policy logistics have an impact on gender non-conforming learners in one rural Senior Secondary in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Two teachers were purposefully sampled as participants for this qualitative case study research. To collect data, semi-structured interviews were administered. Using thematic analyses led to the formation of themes which were used to discuss findings. The study found that (i) there are dynamics in policy formulation and also that (ii) there is a violation of school policies. This subjects them to social exclusion and social control that marginalises gender minorities. The study recommends that gender specific school policies be redefined to promote gender neutral and inclusive schools, thus creating societies where everyone is welcome and protected as suggested by the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. Keywords: Policy, Gender, Non-conforming, Diversity.

Reimagining Pharmacy Skills Lab: Implementation and Assessment of Multiple Attempt Practicals and Policy Violations

Reimagining Pharmacy Skills Lab: Implementation and Assessment of Multiple Attempt Practicals and Policy Violations

Health and Safety Compliance in Tanzania: Regulatory Impediments in the Construction Sector

In Tanzania, poor enforcement of occupational health and safety (OHS) regulations has been associated with weak regulatory systems as well as lack of proper procedures on construction sites. However, the role of health and safety actors including organisational structures as enabling or disabling factors are under researched. This study employed qualitative research approach to discern the role of health and safety actors together with reasons for poor OHS enforcement on construction sites. Semi-structured interviews collected data from several health and safety actors within the sector. The salient findings from the study indicate that while legislation for enforcement of OHS exists, there is demonstrated lack of coordination including focus on formality, insufficient resources and overlapping roles regarding management of OHS. Power relations exercised by elected officials over regulators exacerbate these to influence public policy and purposeful violation of rules as a form of informal welfare policy for largely informal workers. This study recommends a need for promotion of safety leadership and behavioral change together with adequate supply of health and safety resources to the whole organisational system. Planning, tendering, designing and implementation stages of construction projects should embrace safety culture.

Theoretical Review of the Implementation of State Civil Apparatus Ethics in Digitals-Based Public Services (E- Government) in Indonesia

There are practices of service from the government to the community through public services, but in Indonesia there are still many violations of policy, which is a violation of ethics in carrying out or implementing public services and this is often done by civil servants or state civil servants. In terms of e-government, this must follow public service ethics based on the principle of openness, namely information openness, ease of access, and accountability that can be legally accounted for for the public interest. This study conducted a qualitative literature study. The study shows that the ethical principles contained in government regulations, especially Article 10 of the Government Regulation of the Republic of Indonesia Number 42 of 2004 concerning the Development of Spirit Corps Spirit and the PA Pada Server Service Code of Ethics, serve to ensure the provision of high-quality digital public services at the central and provincial levels.