“Crowning of the democratic edifice”? — Public discourses on referendums in Luxembourg since the First World War

in Topos. Journal for philosophy and cultural studies (2021), (1), 3254

The contribution gives an oversight over the four series of referenda that have taken place in Luxembourg since the introduction of universal suffrage in 1919. For each date, the historical background ... [more ▼]

The contribution gives an oversight over the four series of referenda that have taken place in Luxembourg since the introduction of universal suffrage in 1919. For each date, the historical background, the main actors, the controverse positions as well as the impact on Luxembourgish society are explored. Thereby, the article shows the political processes linked to the organisation of referenda. At the same time, it presents the evolution of the discourses in Luxembourg on referenda as an expression of political conflicts as well as more generally on referendum as a political instrument. Referenda seem to have been used on one hand in situations where parliament could not play its role or was suspected not to be willing to do so, on the other hand to clarify questions that seemed so important that the voters had to be asked directly for their opinion. Whereas the current conclusion that referendum campaigns contribute to show or even to deepen societal polarisations is true also for the grand-duchy, one of the more notable findings of the Luxembourgish case is that this has not retained, at least in the last decades, the utilisation of the instrument of referendum. Especially concerning matters linked to the subject of democratic or state structures, the government seems to have preferred to let the voters give their point of view, although the risk of polarisation was given and new anti-government movements often grew from the referendum campaigns. In contrast to the relative success of the referendum in the last hundred years, other instruments of direct political participation have been sparsely developed. [less ▲]

Croyances des futurs professionnels de l’éducation luxembourgeois en ce qui concerne les relations école-famille et l’engagement parental

in Education & Formation (2021), e-316

Crucial components in successfully mastering the transition into work – Patterns of coping

Scientific Conference (2016, September 17)

Research issue: Sociological and psychological theories (Hurrelmann & Quenzel, 2012; Havighurst, 1972) consider a successfully accomplishing of certain developmental task as master challenge of youth ... [more ▼]

Research issue: Sociological and psychological theories (Hurrelmann & Quenzel, 2012; Havighurst, 1972) consider a successfully accomplishing of certain developmental task as master challenge of youth. Regarding the economic situation, the transition into work is nowadays a big issue for young people. As a result of social liberalisation and individualisation, developmental tasks and social roles can be more individually chosen and shaped, offering both advantages (more personal freedom) and disadvantages (greater personal responsibility, less strong orientation). How do the Luxembourgish youth of today handle the transition into work in the light of the above and what are the crucial components in successfully mastering the transition into work? Research questions: Our interests are related to the speed, the time and the degree of success of the transition and the coping strategies behind. In what way transition into work is influenced by gender, nationality/migration status and level of education? What are the varying processes, rationales and patterns for accomplishing the transition into work? And what is the role of support services for young people facing problems during the transition? Context and data: The research is based on various data sources. A secondary data analyses was used to a systematic description of young people differentiated by age, level of education and nationality/migration status with regard to transition markers. We devote particular attention to the participation of the young people themselves as experts in our research methods. 77 guideline-based interviews with young people were used to collect subjective information about their coping strategies to accomplish the transition into work. A standardized survey of participants in support services focused on their experiences and their learning outcomes was filled out by 1162 young persons. Experts from academia, professional practice, administration and politics together with representatives of young people participated in 11 focus group discussions. The triangulation of different methodical approaches and different data sources resulted in a broad and multi-perspective representation of young people’s transition into adulthood. Main results: 1) There is a big influence of the educational qualifications, the migration status and family support. For adolescents with average or high educational qualifications the transition into adulthood is easier (less frequently unemployed, find jobs matching their qualifications, more permanent employment contracts). Young people with poor school leaving qualifications face considerable difficulty with the transition into work. An analysis differentiating levels of education by migration background and nationality shows large differences. The data also demonstrates in particular the important supporting role played by the family (financial or emotional, acting as a role model, providing information or informal knowledge, or access to networks). 2) Furthermore our study identified widely varying processes, rationales and patterns for accomplishing the transition. Four types of transition could be identified (direct transition, alternative transition, transition requiring support and failed transition), distinguished by the different strategies for action, values, perspectives and attitudes. 3) The results of the survey indicate some subjective benefit of support service participation, but also potential for improvement. [less ▲]

‘Cruise to the Edge’. How 1970s prog-rock dinos found a safe haven on the cruise ship

in Monios, Jason; Wilmsmeier, Gordon (Eds.) Maritime Mobilities (2018)

Crustal displacements due to continental water loading

in Geophysical Research Letters (2001), 28(4), 651-654

The effects of long-wavelength (>100 km), seasonal variability in continental water storage on vertical crustal motions are assessed. The modeled vertical displacements (ΔrM) have root-mean-square (RMS ... [more ▼]

The effects of long-wavelength (>100 km), seasonal variability in continental water storage on vertical crustal motions are assessed. The modeled vertical displacements (ΔrM) have root-mean-square (RMS) values for 1994–1998 as large as 8 mm, with ranges up to 30 mm, and are predominantly annual in character. Regional strains are on the order of 20 nanostrain for tilt and 5 nanostrain for horizontal deformation. We compare ΔrM with observed Global Positioning System (GPS) heights (ΔrO) (which include adjustments to remove estimated effects of atmospheric pressure and annual tidal and non-tidal ocean loading) for 147 globally distributed sites. When the ΔrO time series are adjusted by ΔrM, their variances are reduced, on average, by an amount equal to the variance of the ΔrM. Of the ΔrO time series exhibiting a strong annual signal, more than half are found to have an annual harmonic that is in phase and of comparable amplitude with the annual harmonic in the ΔrM. The ΔrM time series exhibit long-period variations that could be mistaken for secular tectonic trends or postglacial rebound when observed over a time span of a few years. [less ▲]

Crustal structure of the southern margin of the African continent: Results from geophysical experiments

in Journal of Geophysical Research. Solid Earth (2008), 113(10),

A number of geophysical onshore and offshore experiments were carried out along a profile across the southern margin of the African Plate in the framework of the Inkaba yeAfrica project. Refraction ... [more ▼]

A number of geophysical onshore and offshore experiments were carried out along a profile across the southern margin of the African Plate in the framework of the Inkaba yeAfrica project. Refraction seismic experiments show that Moho depth decreases rapidly from over 40 km inland to around 30 km at the present coast before gently thinning out toward the Agulhas-Falkland Fracture Zone, which marks the transition zone between the continental and oceanic crust. In the region of the abruptly decreasing Moho depth, in the vicinity of the boundary between the Namaqua-Natal Mobile Belt and the Cape Fold Belt, lower crustal P-wave velocities up to 7.4 km/s are observed. This is interpreted as metabasic lithologies of Precambrian age in the Namaqua-Natal Mobile Belt, or mafic intrusions added to the base of the crust by younger magmatism. The velocity model for the upper crust has excellent resolution and is consistent with the known geological record. A joint interpretation of the velocity model with an electrical conductivity model, obtained from magnetotelluric studies, makes it possible to correlate a high-velocity anomaly north of the center of the Beattie magnetic anomaly with a highly resistive body [less ▲]

Crypren Decryptor

Software (2018)

Crypren Decryptor is software which recovers the files encrypted by Crypren ransomware. The decryptor targets the sample with SHA256 digest ... [more ▼]

Crypren Decryptor is software which recovers the files encrypted by Crypren ransomware. The decryptor targets the sample with SHA256 digest: ce53233a435923a68a9ca6987f0d6333bb97d5a435b942d20944356ac29df598. Further details about the design of this software can be found at the paper: http://orbilu.uni.lu/handle/10993/36627. [less ▲]

Cryptanalysis of a Dynamic Universal Accumulator over Bilinear Groups

in Topics in Cryptology – CT-RSA 2021 (2021)

In this paper we cryptanalyse the two accumulator variants proposed by Au et al., which we call the alpha-based construction and the common reference string-based (CRS-based) construction. We show that if ... [more ▼]

In this paper we cryptanalyse the two accumulator variants proposed by Au et al., which we call the alpha-based construction and the common reference string-based (CRS-based) construction. We show that if non-membership witnesses are issued according to the alpha-based construction, an attacker that has access to multiple witnesses is able to efficiently recover the secret accumulator parameter alpha and completely break its security. More precisely, if p is the order of the underlying bilinear group, the knowledge of O(log p log log p) non-membership witnesses permits to successfully recover alpha. Further optimizations and different attack scenarios allow to reduce the number of required witnesses to O(log p), together with practical attack complexity. Moreover, we show that accumulator's collision resistance can be broken if just one of these non-membership witnesses is known to the attacker. We then show how all these attacks for the alpha-based construction can be easily prevented by using instead a corrected expression for witnesses. Although outside the original security model assumed by Au \etal but motivated by some possible concrete application of the scheme where the Manager must have exclusive rights for issuing witnesses (e.g. white/black list based authentication mechanisms), we show that if non-membership witnesses are issued using the CRS-based construction and the CRS is kept secret by the Manager, an attacker accessing multiple witnesses can reconstruct the CRS and compute witnesses for arbitrary new elements. In particular, if the accumulator is initialized by adding m secret elements, the knowledge of m non-membership witnesses allows to succeed in such attack. [less ▲]

Cryptanalysis of ARX-based White-box Implementations

in IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems (2023), 2023(3), 97-135

At CRYPTO’22, Ranea, Vandersmissen, and Preneel proposed a new way to design white-box implementations of ARX-based ciphers using so-called implicit functions and quadratic-affine encodings. They suggest ... [more ▼]

At CRYPTO’22, Ranea, Vandersmissen, and Preneel proposed a new way to design white-box implementations of ARX-based ciphers using so-called implicit functions and quadratic-affine encodings. They suggest the Speck block-cipher as an example target. In this work, we describe practical attacks on the construction. For the implementation without one of the external encodings, we describe a simple algebraic key recovery attack. If both external encodings are used (the main scenario suggested by the authors), we propose optimization and inversion attacks, followed by our main result - a multiple-step round decomposition attack and a decomposition-based key recovery attack. Our attacks only use the white-box round functions as oracles and do not rely on their description. We implemented and verified experimentally attacks on white-box instances of Speck-32/64 and Speck-64/128. We conclude that a single ARX-round is too weak to be used as a white-box round. [less ▲]

Cryptanalysis of CLT13 Multilinear Maps with Independent Slots

in Advances in Cryptology – ASIACRYPT 2019, 25th International Conference on the Theory and Application of Cryptology and Information Security, Kobe, Japan, December 8–12, 2019, Proceedings, Part II (2019, December)