Wine, Fraud and Expertise

While fraud has existed in various forms throughout the history of wine, the establishment of the fine and rare wine market generated increased opportunities and incentives for producing counterfeit wine. In the contemporary fine and rare wine market, wine fraud is a serious concern. The past several decades witnessed significant events of fine wine forgery, including the infamous Jefferson bottles and the more recent large-scale counterfeit operation orchestrated by Rudy Kurniawan. These events prompted and renewed market interest in wine authentication and fraud detection. Expertise in wine is characterized by the relationship between subjective and objective judgments. The development of the wine fraud expert draws attention to the emergence of expertise as an industry response to wine fraud and the relationship between expert judgment and modern science

Brief Announcement: Faster Asynchronous MST and Low Diameter Tree Construction with Sublinear Communication

Building a spanning tree, minimum spanning tree (MST), and BFS tree in a distributed network are fundamental problems which are still not fully understood in terms of time and communication cost. The first work to succeed in computing a spanning tree with communication sublinear in the number of edges in an asynchronous CONGEST network appeared in DISC 2018. That algorithm which constructs an MST is sequential in the worst case; its running time is proportional to the total number of messages sent. Our paper matches its message complexity but brings the running time down to linear in n. Our techniques can also be used to provide an asynchronous algorithm with sublinear communication to construct a tree in which the distance from a source to each node is within an additive term of sqrt{n} of its actual distance

Breaking the O(n^2) Bit Barrier: Scalable Byzantine agreement with an Adaptive Adversary

We describe an algorithm for Byzantine agreement that is scalable in the sense that each processor sends only $\tilde{O}(\sqrt{n})$ bits, where $n$ is the total number of processors. Our algorithm succeeds with high probability against an \emph{adaptive adversary}, which can take over processors at any time during the protocol, up to the point of taking over arbitrarily close to a 1/3 fraction. We assume synchronous communication but a \emph{rushing} adversary. Moreover, our algorithm works in the presence of flooding: processors controlled by the adversary can send out any number of messages. We assume the existence of private channels between all pairs of processors but make no other cryptographic assumptions. Finally, our algorithm has latency that is polylogarithmic in $n$. To the best of our knowledge, ours is the first algorithm to solve Byzantine agreement against an adaptive adversary, while requiring $o(n^{2})$ total bits of communication

Constructing Victims in the International Criminal Court: A Critical Discourse Analysis

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was established in 1998 to address serious crimes of concern to the international community, including genocide and crimes against humanity, among others. This paper examines the construction of victims in ICC proceedings. Through a critical discourse analysis of ICC web pages and other documents intended for victims, I argue that the ICC’s construction of victims reproduces criminal justice logics, which marginalize victims and denies them agency. Said marginalization occurs in an effort to balance retributive and restorative justice. Discourses concerning the role and agency of victims in the Court reproduce institutional neglect and disempowerment

A Little Birdy Told Me: Educators’ Experiences with Twitter as a Professional Learning Network

This study reveals educators’ experiences with using Twitter as a professional learning network. The context of this study is framed by the notion of ubiquitous learning woven into the underpinnings of social learning theory, adult learning theory and connectivism. Current traditional professional learning does not adequately address the needs of today’s educators. There is growing evidence to suggest that teachers are more isolated and lacking the collaboration necessary to encourage and sustain best practices in the classroom. This research investigates the topics of traditional professional learning, online learning and social networks to lead to a keen understanding of the nuances and pitfalls of teacher learning and how Twitter can remedy some of the drawbacks of traditional professional learning. Chapter one provides an introduction inclusive of the researcher’s personal connection to the research topic, the research problem, the research questions and highlights the purpose of the research and the significance to the field. In addition, the organization of the study and a review of relevant terms is noted. Chapter two of this study conforms the review of the literature for this research including the theoretical framework and the topical strands that support the research. In chapter three the researcher discusses the detailed methodology ascribed to for the study. Through a narrative that captures educators’ voices, chapter four details the findings of this research. Chapter five are the conclusion, limitations and implications for further research in this context