The Guardian’s publications of Snowden files: assessing the standards of freedom of speech in the context of state secrets and mass surveillance†

The unprecedented pressure that has been exerted on The Guardian by UK authorities for disclosing state secrets about mass surveillance programmes of security and intelligence services and the instrumental involvement of large high-tech corporations has legal and practical consequences. On one hand, it endangers freedom of speech that characterises and sustains democracy at domestic level and, on the other, it reinforces cross-jurisdictional tactics of media organisations and uncontrolled disclosures on the internet, where the danger of manipulation of national state secrets is considerable. The legal problem involved lies in a judicial deviation from the entrenched standards of constitutional review, forcing an exclusive focus on the alleged damage that is caused by media publications. To secure a healthy political and public debate domestically and avoid unwarranted disclosures and manipulation of national state secrets in foreign media and digital markets, the importance of the public interest issue that is disclosed by domestic media must be evaluated, and safeguarded accordingly by a higher level of protection of freedom of speech in constitutional review.     

Beyond Simon’s Means-Ends Analysis: Natural Creativity and the Unanswered ‘Why’ in the Design of Intelligent Systems for Problem-Solving

Goal-directed problem solving as originally advocated by Herbert Simon’s means-ends analysis model has primarily shaped the course of design research on artificially intelligent systems for problem-solving. We contend that there is a definite disregard of a key phase within the overall design process that in fact logically precedes the actual problem solving phase. While systems designers have traditionally been obsessed with goal-directed problem solving, the basic determinants of the ultimate desired goal state still remain to be fully understood or categorically defined. We propose a rational framework built on a set of logically inter-connected conjectures to specifically recognize this neglected phase in the overall design process of intelligent systems for practical problem-solving applications.     

Unified Analysis of Leap-Frog Methods for Solving Time-Domain Maxwell’s Equations in Dispersive Media

In this paper, we consider the time dependent Maxwell’s equations resulting from dispersive medium models. First, the stability and Gauss’s law are proved for all three most popular dispersive medium models: the isotropic cold plasma, the one-pole Debye medium and the two-pole Lorentz medium. Then leap-frog mixed finite element methods are developed for these three models. Optimal error estimates are proved for all three models solved by the lowest-order Raviart-Thomas-Nédélec spaces. Extensions to multiple pole dispersive media are presented also. Numerical results confirming the analysis are presented.     

Taking stock of organisations’ protection of privacy: categorising and assessing threats to personally identifiable information in the USA

Many organisations create, store, or purchase information that links individuals’ identities to other data. Termed personally identifiable information (PII), this information has become the lifeblood of many firms across the globe. As organisations accumulate their constituencies’ PII (e.g. customers’, students’, patients’, and employees’ data), individuals’ privacy will depend on the adequacy of organisations’ information privacy safeguards. Despite existing protections, many breaches still occur. For example, US organisations reported around 4,500 PII-breach events between 2005 and 2015. With such a high number of breaches, determining all threats to PII within organisations proves a burdensome task. In light of this difficulty, we utilise text-mining and cluster analysis techniques to create a taxonomy of various organisational PII breaches, which will help drive targeted research towards organisational PII protection. From an organisational systematics perspective, our classification system provides a foundation to explain the diversity among the myriad of threats. We identify eight major PII-breach types and provide initial literature reviews for each type of breach. We detail how US organisations differ regarding their exposure to these breaches, as well as how the level of severity (i.e. number of records affected) differs among these PII breaches. Finally, we offer several paths for future research.     

Of ‘knowing science’ and of ‘doing science’: A reaffirmation of the tacit and the affective in science and science education

Abstract:

Most of school science concentrates on helping students gain a knowledge and understanding of explicit science, which may subsequently be tested in examinations. It presents a picture of science as a secure body of knowledge, gained by scientists working according to the standard procedures of science. In this paper I stress a different model of science: the looseness of the knowledge held, the idiosyncratic methods by which it is obtained, and the personal way in which it is used to solve problems. I also stress the importance of tacit knowledge and the affective driving force, which describe the personal knowledge that scientists both hold and utilize; I analyse the nature of authentic science in terms of the type of knowledge that scientists know and the way in which scientists work. The arguments for and against such authentic science in schools are considered, together with the factors limiting its practicality. Influenced by the writing of Polanyi, Hodgkin, and Claxton and by experience of, and researches into, students doing problem‐solving projects in schools, I argue that it is desirable, and possible, to incorporate some such authentic science into the school science curriculum. In spite of many unsympathetic pressures acting on current schooling, I believe that there is a vital need to reaffirm the importance of the tacit and the affective in school science.     

Murray’s law and the bifurcation angle in the arterial micro-circulation system and their application to the design of microfluidics

Murray’s law which is related to the bifurcations of vascular blood vessels states that the cube of a parent vessel’s diameter equals the sum of the cubes of the daughter vessels’ diameters D₀³ = D₁³ + D₂³ , a = D₀³ /( D₁³ + D₂³ ) = 1, D_{0}^{3} = D_{1}^{3} + D_{2}^{3} ,,alpha = D_{0}^{3} /left( {D_{1}^{3} + D_{2}^{3} } right) = 1, where D ₀, D ₁, and D ₂ are the diameters of the parent and two daughter vessels, respectively and α is the ratio). The structural characteristics of the vessels are crucial in the development of the cardiovascular system as well as for the proper functioning of an organism. In order to understand the vascular circulation system, it is essential to understand the design rules or scaling laws of the system under a homeostatic condition. In this study, Murray’s law in the extraembryonic arterial bifurcations and its relationship with the bifurcation angle (θ) using 3-day-old chicken embryos in vivo has been investigated. Bifurcation is an important geometric factor in biological systems, having a significant influence on the circulation in the vascular system. Parameters such as diameter and bifurcation angle of all the 140 vessels tested were measured using image analysis softwares. The experimental results for α (= 1.053 ± 0.188) showed a good agreement with the ratio of 1 for Murray’s law. Furthermore, the diameter relation α approached the theoretical value of 1 as the diameter of parent vessel D ₀ decreased below 100 μm. The bifurcation angle θ decreased as D ₀ increased and vice versa. For the arterial bifurcations of chicken embryos tested in this study, the bifurcation pattern appears to be symmetric (D ₁ = D ₂). The bifurcation angle exhibited a nearly constant value of 77°, close to the theoretical value of 75° for a symmetric bifurcation.     

Analysis of friction coupling and the Painlevé paradox in multibody systems

Multibody System Dynamics - Multibody models are useful to describe the macroscopic motion of the elements of physical systems. Modeling contact in such systems can be challenging, especially if...     

Situating the “music of” households and firemen in semi-open spaces: contribution to the analysis of collective activity’s spatio-temporal dynamics

Cognition, Technology & Work - Examining different team dynamics and understanding collective activities in home environments are two important challenges for ergonomics and its related fields....     

A Perspective Analysis of the Proportions of Palladio’s Villa Rotonda: Making the Invisible Visible

Because of differences between Palladio’s architecture as built and the ideal architecture represented in the Quattro libri, many analyses have been performed in order to bring to light the proportions that underlie the beauty of the architecture. This present paper proposes a method of analysis based on perspective grids laid out on photographs to reveal how perspective is used to heighten the spectator’s perception of the forms.     

Simplification of the equations in the paper ‘Optimal H∞ robustness and the relationship to LQG design problems’

There are various forms of the polynomial equations used to compute H_∞ controllers, some of which are numerically more useful than others. A simplification of the equations presented in the paper by Grimbie (1986) is presented and some useful relationships are derived.     

Some Considerations about the Kohau Rongorongo Script in the Light of a Statistical Analysis of the ‘Santiago Staff’

Abstract

This paper deals with the distributional analysis of a recurring pattern on the Easter Island artifact known as the ‘Santiago Staff’ (‘SS’ from now on). It has been claimed that the pattern known as “X?YZ,” arguably to be found in a repetitive fashion in a “recital of pairings,” conveys a model of procreation in line with the Old Rapanui sacral chants, thus giving a clue to a possible decipherment of the SS's document. According to Steven R. Fischer, the scholar who retrieved the pattern in question, the formula “X?YZ” consists of, “X”: the “copulator” God, “?”: the superlinear corresponding to the old Rapanui phrase “copulated with,” “Y”: the “copulatee” Goddess and finally, “Z”: the issue of their “copulation.” Under this assumption, and bearing in mind that Fischer did not offer any sort of count with regard to his claim, the structure “X?YZ” has been tested and replicated to “Atua-Mata-Riri,” viewed by some researchers to be a bilingual for the understanding of the alleged schematized pattern. The evidence encountered so far supports the view that the hypothesis cannot be true for all the KRR text of the ‘SS,’ specifically for sequences other than the “X?YZ” type, leaving many doubts in the minds of epigraphers and suggesting flaws in the method of decipherment. To the most evident degree, the message encrypted in the ‘SS,’ i.e., text I, is still resisting decoding by the scholars.     

Road safety communication effectiveness: the roles of emotion and information in motorists’ ability to detect vulnerable road users

Cognition, Technology & Work - This study aimed to investigate the impact of the emotional and informational components of road safety communication on the motorists’ ability to detect...     

Adverse consequences of access to individuals’ information: an analysis of perceptions and the scope of organisational influence

Organisations are highly interested in collecting and analysing customer data to enhance their service offerings and customer interaction. However, individuals increasingly fear how such practices may negatively affect them. Although previous studies have investigated individuals’ concerns about information privacy practices, the adverse consequences people associate with external actors accessing their personal information remain unclear. To mitigate customers’ fears, organisations need to know which adverse consequences individuals are afraid of and how to address those negative perceptions. To investigate this topic, we conducted 22 focus groups with 119 participants. We developed a comprehensive conceptualisation and categorisation of individuals’ perceived adverse consequences of access to their information that includes seven types of consequences: psychological, social, career-related, physical, resource-related, prosecution-related, and freedom-related. Although individuals may limit their interactions with an organisation owing to consequences they associate with both the organisation and other actors, organisations can apply preventive and corrective mechanisms to mitigate some of these negative perceptions. However, organisations’ scope of influence is limited and some fears may be mitigated only by individuals themselves or government regulation, if at all.     

Analysis of the performance characteristics of controllers’ strategies in en route air traffic control tasks

For addressing human factor issues in the air traffic control (ATC) domain, further comprehension of controllers’ working methods during actual work is required. The objective of the present research is to analyze the performance characteristics of control strategies, which can be a major means to manage a traffic situation and workload for controllers, by using our process visualization tool of ATC tasks called COMPASi (COMPAS in interactive mode/COMPAS: COgnitive system Model for simulating Projection-based behaviors of Air traffic controllers in dynamic Situations). The computer-based simulation using COMPASi has clearly demonstrated the performance differences in the types of control strategies derived from a high-fidelity human-in-the-loop simulation (HITLS) for safety, efficiency of completing ATC tasks, and fuel economy of aircraft in a specific situation, and also differences in their tolerance of situational variability. The analysis results have been supported by performance evaluations carried out by ATC training instructors. In addition, a comparative analysis between simulation results under several simulation conditions by COMPASi and evaluation results by the instructor has strongly implied that the tolerance for the variability of situations might be a major factor in selection of control strategies by a controller. These contributions of the present research may be useful for practical purposes such as further improvement of education and training for controllers.