Author: Jun Gao

Expanded Definition

Jun Gao

Professor Ellis

ENG 2575

12/10/21

The concept of the sociological imagination permeates nearly every aspect of our existence within the confines of artificial social constructs. C. Wright Mills first coined the term to define the subtle interconnectivity of relatively common or inconsequential stimuli to more substantial social occurrences within the framework of our societal functions. The idea is indispensable to the foundation of modern sociological discourse. Its basis is rooted in the fabric of our social constructs. It allows academics to understand how individuals within a community behave based on the specific social systems that form their civilization(s). Sociological imagination allows us to peer into the boundless scope of analysis concerning how our ideological viewpoints are connected to the social and historical implications within a more profound context of reasoning. Sporting activities are an everyday communal activity related to the larger social constructs that uphold their importance to our society, subsequently illustrating the validity of Mills’ concepts through the connections that sports have to larger social and historical contexts.

The field of sociological imagination is an expansive ideology that allows academics to assess the social and historical implications of our social constructs. Every conceivable tradition possessed by human civilization inherently correlates to a substance within the sociological imagination concerning its multifaceted impact on the development of human cultures. “Mills’ contemporaries in sociology tended to focus on understanding systems rather than exploring individual issues. He believed that looking at a balance between systems and the individuals within them was essential to understanding their cooperative relationship, as well as the social structures that arise out of the conflict between various groups […] And that’s important because, without sociological imagination, all of our common sense ideas are drawn from our limited social experiences. Sociological imagination is a framework for viewing the social world that exceeds those limitations; an ability to develop an understanding of how biography is the consequence of historical processes and unfolds within a bigger context in society.” (Prout, 4) This showcases the universal capabilities of using this particular methodology better to understand complex social issues and sociological elements of study. Many of our daily activities are connected to historical circumstances that allowed for the progression of specific behavior, subsequently creating many foundational substances within our social framework(s). Sports are a notable institutional activity rooted in several groups’ socio-cultural properties, which grew into a complex network of communal activities. Sports and sporting activities are essential to modern civilization and are a common aspect of our lives; the move reflects several core values that were crucial concepts within the evolution of human society and have critical historical factors connected to its modern relevance.

The history of sports is founded on the social properties of human advancement. Sports were adapted and progressed from several behaviors and practices implemented into early social frameworks as survival techniques and entertainment. The emergence of development in early childhood directly allows individuals to allow sports to permeate an aspect of their daily lives, thus forming a connection between the social and historical factors concerning the practice’s expansion. This undeviatingly relates to Mill’s sociological concept and shows how sociological imagination can connect certain crucial factors to comprehend our society’s nature better. “Infants develop an emerging awareness of other people and physical objects found in the environment. Babies learn to grasp, hold and use simple objects like spoons, dolls, bottles, and blankets. As their physical skills continue to develop, they learn to play with objects by imitating the people around them. […] reflected the religious significance combined with activities associated with physical survival. For example, Africans participated in archery. It was a valued warring skill and dance because it held religious value.” (Delaney, 50) The extensive history of sports is rooted within human civilization’s earliest communal customs. Communities have been engaging in sport-like activities for millennia, growing into a multifaceted network of activities that encompass the same core principles of contest and competition that early civilizations used to enhance their aggressive capabilities. This establishes a profound association between Mill’s concept and the relevance of sport’s development in conjunction with human society, showcasing that many popular sports in modern culture are connected to ancient practices that appear to have no obvious correlation.

The societal implications of understanding human development through Mill’s perspective are illustrated through the growth of our civilizations through our sporting habits. Humans in different societies interacted with sports in relatively similar accords, using objects and defined regulations to compete in various competitions. These systems share several similarities concerning gender roles and other social constructs integral to modern society. “In most premodern societies, boys were encouraged by their families to compete in sports, which were presumed to prepare them for their adult roles as warriors and workers, while girls were encouraged to continue to play non-competitive games that prepared them for motherhood. In modern societies, boys and young men continue to outnumber girls and young women involved in sports competition.” (Britannica, 5) This illustrates the defining pattern of sport’s relevance within the growth of social practices; viewing this association through the sociological imagination allows for a better understanding of how gender-based practices have existed within our societies for generations, illustrating specific factors that directly connect to other aspects of sociology. The connection between sports and socialization is another profound constituent that shows the importance of Mill’s perspective. “Play, games, contests, and sports have crucial and quite specific roles in the general socialization process. The sense of self is not natural; it develops through childhood socialization as a result of role-playing […] They develop a reflexive conception of the self and its position concerning others, and they learn to see themselves as others see them.” (Britannica, 4) This sentiment illustrates the importance of sports in developing individuality and communal perspectives and their practical implementations in our social framework. Our cultural expectations and self-perceptions are directly connected to the fundamental nature of sporting activities,  allowing us to progress within communication efforts and the socialization process. This allows us to see the influence of sports within the historical and social development of the human race while simultaneously illustrating the effectiveness of the sociological imagination.

The importance of the sociological perspective is rooted in the utilization of crucial historical and social implications that connect to Mill’s methodology. Our behavior patterns expanded into numerous social systems that are active institutions within our social construct and have shown the importance of understanding society through an enlightening perspective.

Works Cited

Delaney, Tim, and Madigan, Tim. The Sociology of Sports: An Introduction, 2d Ed.. United States, McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers, 2015.

Maguire, Joseph Anthony , Guttmann, Allen , Thompson, William N. and Rowe, David Charles. “sports”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 16 Sep. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/sports/sports. Accessed 26 November 2021.

Prout, Todd. “What Is Sociological Imagination?” National University, National University, 30 July 2021, www.nu.edu/resources/what-is-sociological-imagination/.

Instruction manual on how to counteract negative police interactions with the LAPD

Jun Gao          

Professor Ellis

ENG 2575

Dec 5, 2021

Problem

In modern society, several pertinent ethical debates concerning the behaviors and practices of law enforcement agencies have positioned themselves at the forefront of our socio-political discourse. The ethical standards of several police departments in Los Angeles have been denoted towards a negative connotation in the eyes of its surrounding communities; a multitude of citizens from areas with diverse cultural demographics have been publicly oppressed in their neighborhoods through methods of over-policing, brutality, and other aggressive tactics that have manipulated the consensus on the topic of police for many individuals. There has been a considerable lack of consequence or reprimanding for many of the cases surrounding these malicious circumstances, coupled with a unique sense of inaction regarding the much-required institutional adaptations needed for Los Angeles-based policing systems. L.A.’s police system requires a substantial transformation from its current community-policing tactics to develop a considerably healthier dynamic between law enforcement and civilians, simultaneously investing in community-outreach initiatives, positive communication tactics, and abolishing unscrupulous police practices.

Background

The Los Angeles Police department is recognized globally for its capacity to abuse its operational powers and systematically oppressed communities of color. The agency is infamous for instigating many violent altercations between law enforcement and civilians, engaging in aggressive behavior often leading to physically violent (and sometimes fatal) disputes to occur. The Los Angeles Police Department’s actions dissolve any possibilities of a positive relationship between themselves and the communities they serve. Immediately following the effects of quarantine, the summer saw a substantial rise in social activist initiatives in direct response to community retaliation against police brutality on a nationwide scale. Reports described the events surrounding waves of policy-oriented violence as a “reign of terror,” citing multiple shootings of unarmed civilians, aggressive interactions between civilians and officers, and the escalation of social conflicts that lead to prevalent tension between the two parties. This notion has led to a stark dichotomy between the LAPD and the members of its various communities, demonstrating the adverse effects that malicious police operations had led to. “Police leaders have put forward accounts of each killing that they say to justify the use of force. But civil rights activists and victims’ families say the repeated bloodshed is a sign that police continue to escalate conflicts and resort to violence, even in the most routine of encounters – and that a more radical response is needed to prevent the next tragedy… LASD is the largest county police agency in the U.S., with jurisdiction in nearly 200 different towns and cities, and has a track record of brutality and controversial killings, racial profiling and corruption cases.”. (Levin, 3). The policing system in Los Angeles has been associated within the context of its direct altercation switch with the general public. The killing of unarmed civilians and the strong sense of conflict between both sides of the dichotomy has fueled a considerably virulent relationship based upon the seemingly repeating actions used to solve issues inadequately and efficiently de-escalate ambivalence.

Potential Methods of Solution Tactics

The assistance required to deal with the issues at hand is extensive. The nature of this problem is rooted in the standardization of aggressive methodologies being at the root of police training and the manipulation of community relations with law enforcement to be allocated towards destructive actions. Understanding empathy and utilizing the concept in community relations with the people(s) afflicted the most is crucial to comprehend the nature of police-community interactions. Many of these neighborhoods are actively disinterested in developing a healthy dialogue with police and incentivize the lack of nutritional communication standards to continue this dangerous narrative. “Racial and gender disparities abound within the criminal justice system and beyond. Many of these communities are made up of low-income neighborhoods with diverse racial demographics and a high percentage of black and Hispanic individuals, disproportionately affecting the livelihoods of minorities in Los Angeles. Males of color make up an unsettling majority of those stopped, arrested, and convicted of violent crimes in major cities all over America. They are also the majority of violent crime victims and are far more likely to be subjected to police force…Policing does not exist in a vacuum. It is a reflection of a country rife with racial disparity, which must be addressed in employment, healthcare, housing, education, and beyond.”. (Moore, 2-4). The correlation between race and police aggression is a necessary factor to consider when discerning the root of the attitudes taken when dealing with minorities from the responsibilities held by law enforcement officers—having a clear understanding of this dynamic and its subsequent issues coupled with the context of the historical relations between the two have to be analyzed to fully grasp the nature of the problem and any potential solutions in the attempt. Local political initiatives have been incentivized and propagated in recent times due to social backlash and numerous outcries for community legislators to create viable solutions to the issue. However, adequate assistance and community outreach programs must be invested if the point of de-escalation and the development of cordial, healthy communication tactics are created.

Survey

A survey would be conducted under the context of analyzing to dismantle oppressive practices of police aggression and the use of violent tactics in various communities with a particular area of interest in establishing relatively healthy methods of communication and interaction from the perspectives of both sides. Surveys in the form of questionnaires will be distributed to communities with the most active police presence in Los Angeles. Prevalent communities such as Skid Row, South LA, Lincoln Heights, and Hyde Park (neighborhoods with high crimes rates and heavy, active police presence) to gauge the public consensus on police-civilian relations to apply a relevant methodology in seeking for solutions to create better forms of communication between members of communities afflicted with prevalent police interaction. This would consequently allow law enforcement or create foundational grassroots initiatives to connect with community members on a more substantial basis, counteracting the negative ramifications of police-community tensions and creating a more equitable ecosystem for positive relationships to develop adequately.

Possible Solutions

Several viable solutions could potentially amend the toxic relationship between civilians and law enforcement in Los Angeles. The very root of the problem stems from critical factors that influence the trajectory of developing relations between both parties; excessive use of physical and lethal force, racial prejudice and discriminatory practices, and a stark lack of accountable consequences issued towards infringed actions are essential concepts of interests concerning the issue of police brutality and police-neighborhood interactions. The problems afflicting these areas can be derived from these three components, allocating their importance to the most significant concern and directing a focused objective towards establishing a solid foundation for new operations.

A foundational option for both police officers and Los Angeles residents to consider would be participating in community relations programs and reforming the entire law enforcement training process to be geared towards empathetic dialogue and practical de-escalation education to standardize the use of acceptable conflict resolution practice and to build a sense of trust among Los Angeles communities and their police department(s). The use of educational programs for police departments (and communities) would effectively solve many of these operational misconceptions and faulty practices in the currently abusive institution. Organizations dedicated to teaching police officers about the core concepts concerning healthy police de-escalation tactics should implement their techniques in Los Angeles to create a status quo for beneficial, efficient policing tactics to be implemented into educational routines. “Programs to improve police-community relations benefit the community by decreasing fear and stress, especially in a community where the presence of law enforcement increases the anxiety of its citizens. A decrease in this anxiety can regulate potential conflict before it begins…These programs to improve police-community relations can benefit police departments by decreasing or de-escalating conflicts that may garner negative consequences, keeping law enforcement and the community in what may seem like an ongoing battle.”. (Police Peacekeeping, 2-4). Programs and networks that encourage officers to resort to “tactical communication skills” (skills used for high-stress and dangerous altercations) and conflict resolution will drastically reduce the apparent need for physical force to be applied during quarrels, and lead to an overall increase in policing efficiency and interpersonal community relations. One study found that “a single instance of positive contact with a uniformed police officer can substantially improve public attitudes toward police, including legitimacy and willingness to cooperate.” (Peyton, 1); this information directly correlates to the notion that creating avenues for these positive interactions to occur through education and congregation will effectively lead to beneficial results.

Conclusion

The nature of police-neighborhood relation is a topic that polarizes opinion. Aggressive acts stemming from non-communicative situations with police officers and (innocent) civilians have developed a sense of tension between both groups, leading to a less-than-favorable dynamic held between members of this evil dichotomy. Active Los Angeles communities must initiate resistance against the normalization of these practices on social and political platforms to dismantle oppressive practices systematically, and violent behaviors carried out by members of a corrupt police force.

Works Cited

Peyton, K., Sierra-Arévalo, M., & Rand, D. G. (2019). A field experiment on community policing and police legitimacy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(40), 19894-19898.

ACLU. (n.d.). Fighting police abuse: A community action manual. American Civil Liberties Union. https://www.aclu.org/other/fighting-police-abuse-community-action-manual.

Levin, S. (2020, September 6). ‘Reign of TERROR’: A summer of police violence in Los Angeles. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/06/los-angeles-police-killings-dijon-kizzee-andres-guardado.

Chang, A. (2020, June 5). LA’s history of racial tensions and Police Brutality, Revisited. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2020/06/05/871083491/las-history-of-racial-tensions-and-police-brutality-revisited.

Moore, M. (2021, June 3). Chief Michel Moore: Inequities in policing are a reflection of a racially biased society. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-03/chief-michel-moore-racially-biased-policing.

N/A. (2021, March 3). Programs to improve POLICE-COMMUNITY RELATIONS: Pollack Peacebuilding. Pollack Peacebuilding Systems. https://pollackpeacebuilding.com/police-community-relations-programs/.

500 Word Summary

To: Professor Ellis     

From: Jun Gao

Date: Oct 1, 2021

Subject: 500- Word Summary of DroidMorph

Topic/Major: CST, Cyber Security & Networking

There has been a rise in different variants of Android malware and there needs to be new and improved methods to combat this malware. There is this new tool developed called DroidMorph. Multiple reports have stated that Androids are still the main target of malware attacks with malwares cloning themselves and there are a lot of data to support that claim. Malware creators use stealthy mutations to make clones of malwares.

To combat malware clones, we need to study how they are generated. DroidMorph is a  Android APK morphing tool, which can be used to create Android application malware clones. It turns out that even top of the line anti-malware programs are susceptible to attack by these transformations. They tested 10 anti malware programs and repetitive transformations were used to fool the anti-malware program. During the tests, it was discovered that AntiY AVL which is a anti malware, performed better than the others.

Protsenko et al tested against data and object-oriented design obfuscations against the top 10 anti malware and found inadequacy in them all. These four examples of anti-malware testing proved that all of them have some deficiencies and it is time to introduce the tool DroidMorph. Droidmorph is implemented on the Soot Framework which is an improvement over the old implementations. Droidmorph provides support for analysis, modification, and generation of Android bytecode. Droidmorph provides morphing of APK at different levels of abstraction. Figure shows the archtitectural design of DroidMorph.

The current design of DroidMorph has three levels of abstrations when it comes to morphing, class, method and body. They conducted a study to analyze the efficiency of DroidMorph. The dataset has 848 Android malware programs which was collected from two different sources. They explained in table 1 it shows distribution of the malware samples. Table shows the number of variants generated for each level of abstraction. Table 3 shows the detection results of the 17 commercial anti-malware programs tested with 1771 variants of 7 malware families generated by DroidMorph.

Results show that 8 out of 17 anti-malware programs could not detect any morphed APKs. End results show that DroidMorph was successful in bypassing the security in multiple anti-malware programs. DroidMorph’s detection average proved to be significantly better than many antimalware programs.

DroidMorph and the research into developing and improving the program is still a work in progress. With the development of DroidMorph and its ability to morph different malware into different clones, the developers hope that DroidMorph will be used in the future for research of new malwares and their clones. In the future, there will be many more improvements and updates that will be made to DroidMorph, hopefully make it the industry standard for fighting malware and its clones.

Reference

S. Alam, M. Z. ul Abideen and S. Saleem, “DroidMorph: Are We Ready to Stop the Attack of Android Malware Clones?,” 2018 2nd International Symposium on Multidisciplinary Studies and Innovative Technologies (ISMSIT), 2018, pp. 1-4, doi: 10.1109/ISMSIT.2018.8567059.

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