188 research outputs found
2023 Global Religious Recognition Report
The Global Religious Recognition Report (GRR Report) returns for its second edition, this year including more detail on each country and territory's registration policies and on their practices of states extending privileges to some religions and beliefs and not others. Recognition and registration issues continue to impact conditions of freedom of religion or belief throughout the world and it is the purpose of the GRR Report to highlight the extent of these issues nation by nation as part of the report's country-specific approach to the subject. Detailed explanations of registration policy have been gathered from the Office of International Religious Freedom's International Religious Freedom Report in addition to other credible sources. The RoRB classification for each country and territory has been updated in accordance with the criteria set out in the Spectrum of Religious Recognition (SRR) which was included towards the front of this year's report. With more detail provided this year on registration policy in each nation, this report has revealed the complexity of registration issues and the drastic impacts they have on religious freedom
Expectations and expertise in artificial intelligence: specialist views and historical perspectives on conceptualisation, promise, and funding
Artificial intelligence’s (AI) distinctiveness as a technoscientific field that imitates the ability to think went through a resurgence of interest post-2010, attracting a flood of scientific and popular expectations as to its utopian or dystopian transformative consequences. This thesis offers observations about the formation and dynamics of expectations based on documentary material from the previous periods of perceived AI hype (1960-1975 and 1980-1990, including in-between periods of perceived dormancy), and 25 interviews with UK-based AI specialists, directly involved with its development, who commented on the issues during the crucial period of uncertainty (2017-2019) and intense negotiation through which AI gained momentum prior to its regulation and relatively stabilised new rounds of long-term investment (2020-2021). This examination applies and contributes to longitudinal studies in the sociology of expectations (SoE) and studies of experience and expertise (SEE) frameworks, proposing a historical sociology of expertise and expectations framework. The research questions, focusing on the interplay between hype mobilisation and governance, are: (1) What is the relationship between AI practical development and the broader expectational environment, in terms of funding and conceptualisation of AI? (2) To what extent does informal and non-developer assessment of expectations influence formal articulations of foresight? (3) What can historical examinations of AI’s conceptual and promissory settings tell about the current rebranding of AI?
The following contributions are made: (1) I extend SEE by paying greater attention to the interplay between technoscientific experts and wider collective arenas of discourse amongst non-specialists and showing how AI’s contemporary research cultures are overwhelmingly influenced by the hype environment but also contribute to it. This further highlights the interaction between competing rationales focusing on exploratory, curiosity-driven scientific research against exploitation-oriented strategies at formal and informal levels. (2) I suggest benefits of examining promissory environments in AI and related technoscientific fields longitudinally, treating contemporary expectations as historical products of sociotechnical trajectories through an authoritative historical reading of AI’s shifting conceptualisation and attached expectations as a response to availability of funding and broader national imaginaries. This comes with the benefit of better perceiving technological hype as migrating from social group to social group instead of fading through reductionist cycles of disillusionment; either by rebranding of technical operations, or by the investigation of a given field by non-technical practitioners. It also sensitises to critically examine broader social expectations as factors for shifts in perception about theoretical/basic science research transforming into applied technological fields. Finally, (3) I offer a model for understanding the significance of interplay between conceptualisations, promising, and motivations across groups within competing dynamics of collective and individual expectations and diverse sources of expertise
Geographic information extraction from texts
A large volume of unstructured texts, containing valuable geographic information, is available online. This information – provided implicitly or explicitly – is useful not only for scientific studies (e.g., spatial humanities) but also for many practical applications (e.g., geographic information retrieval). Although large progress has been achieved in geographic information extraction from texts, there are still unsolved challenges and issues, ranging from methods, systems, and data, to applications and privacy. Therefore, this workshop will provide a timely opportunity to discuss the recent advances, new ideas, and concepts but also identify research gaps in geographic information extraction
Hash Gone Bad: Automated discovery of protocol attacks that exploit hash function weaknesses
Most cryptographic protocols use cryptographic hash functions as a building block. The security analyses of these protocols typically assume that the hash functions are perfect (such as in the random oracle model). However, in practice, most widely deployed hash functions are far from perfect -- and as a result, the analysis may miss attacks that exploit the gap between the model and the actual hash function used.
We develop the first methodology to systematically discover attacks on security protocols that exploit weaknesses in widely deployed hash functions. We achieve this by revisiting the gap between theoretical properties of hash functions and the weaknesses of real-world hash functions, from which we develop a lattice of threat models. For all of these threat models, we develop fine-grained symbolic models.
Our methodology's fine-grained models cannot be directly encoded in existing state-of-the-art analysis tools by just using their equational reasoning. We therefore develop extensions for the two leading tools, Tamarin and Proverif. In extensive case studies using our methodology, the extended tools rediscover all attacks that were previously reported for these protocols and discover several new variants
The Chocolate Makers and the “Abyss of Hell”: Race, Empire and the Role of Visual Propaganda in the Anglo-Portuguese Controversy surrounding Labour Coercion in the “Cocoa Islands” (1901 - 1917)
The dissertation focuses on the scandal surrounding the use of coerced labour in the contract-labour system which was thriving in the Portuguese West African colonies at the beginning of the twentieth century, notably in the cocoa plantations of the equatorial islands of São Tomé and Príncipe in the Gulf of Guinea. The controversy, which for long periods received almost weekly coverage in both the Portuguese and British press, came to a climax in 1909, with a famous boycott on the purchase of Portuguese cacao by the British chocolate manufacturing firms of Cadbury, Rowntree and Fry and their German associates, Stollwerck, which was never to be withdrawn. Despite a three-year suspension on the import of labour from Angola to the so-called “cocoa islands” and the introduction of regular repatriation of the contract-labourers after the fall of the Monarchy in 1910, the British humanitarian campaign continued both in Parliament and the Press, and would in fact intensify in 1912 against the backdrop of supposedly secret Anglo-German negotiations to carve up the Portuguese African colonies. Previous writings on the “Slave-Grown Cocoa Controversy” have tended to place their emphasis on the British humanitarian campaign whilst underestimating the opposition in Portugal against the system and ignoring, to a certain extent, the hidden agendas of virtually all of those who played a part in the controversy. In this study I try to set the record straight and show how what was essentially a question of human rights was often pragmatically exploited to support less altruistic objectives, both in Britain and in Portugal. The study draws upon Government reports, statements and diplomatic correspondence referring to the question of contract labour in S. Tomé and Príncipe, relevant central and colonial legislation, contemporary articles, news items and illustrations from both Portuguese and Foreign periodicals, and doctrinal works, pamphlets and literature illustrating the prevailing attitudes of the time regarding contract labour and the treatment of the indigenous peoples of the Portuguese colonies. Amongst the hitherto unexploited resources which enrich the plethora of material on the controversy and are examined here in detail for the first time are contemporary photographs, picture postcards, advertisements, lantern slides and documentary films which
played a significant role in reinforcing racist attitudes and influencing public opinion in the controversy.A presente dissertação aborda o escândalo associado ao emprego de mão-de-obra coagida, sistema, esse, que estava generalizado nas colónias de África Ocidental Portuguesa no início do século vinte, nomeadamente nas roças de cacau de São Tomé e Príncipe. A controvérsia, que, durante muito tempo, teve referências quase semanais na imprensa portuguesa e britânica atingiu o seu auge em 1909, com o conhecido boicote à compra de cacau português imposto pelos chocolateiros britânicos Cadbury, Rowntree e Fry e os seus associados alemães, Stollwerck, que nunca viria a ser levantado. Apesar da suspensão, durante três anos, do recrutamento e importação de trabalhadores angolanos para as chamadas “ilhas do cacao”, e a sua repatriação sistemática depois da queda da Monarquia, a campanha humanitária britânica prosseguiu no Parlamento e a Imprensa, intensificando-se até 1912, perante o cenário de negociações anglo-alemães, supostamente secretas, que se destinavam a redistribuição das colónias portuguesas em África. Os anteriores estudos acerca do chamado “Cacau Escravo” deram ênfase à campanha humanitária britânica, ao mesmo tempo subvalorizando a oposição em Portugal contra o sistema de contratação de mão-de-obra e tratando de forma sumária os principais objectivos, muitas vezes escondidos, de quase todos os protagonistas da disputa. Este estudo representa uma tentativa de corrigir o que tem sido a narrativa predominante e de mostrar como uma questão, essencialmente do foro dos direitos humanos, foi explorada de forma pragmática para obter resultados menos altruístas, tanto na Grã-Bretanha como em Portugal. O estudo baseia-se em relatórios e declarações governativos, correspondência diplomática acerca do trabalho contratado em S.Tomé e Príncipe, legislação nacional e colonial acerca da mão-de-obra indígena, artigos, referências e ilustrações de periódicos portugueses e estrangeiros, e artigos de opinião, panfletos e obras de ficcão que exemplificam as atitudes contemporâneas acerca de mão-de-obra contratada e o tratamento das comunidades indígenas das colónias portuguesas de África. Entre as fontes que foram examinadas em pormenor pela primeira vez aqui, enriquecendo o já substancial corpo de matéria de investigação, contam-se fotografias, bilhetes-postais ilustrados, anúncios, “slides” de lanterna mágica e filmes documentários que influenciaram a opinião pública na controvérsia e desempenharam um papel significativo no reforço de atitudes racistas
The Historical Origins of the Duty to Save Life at Sea in International Law
The article looks into the historical development of the international law duty to save life at sea. It argues that this duty has its origins into legal sources that predated the genesis of international law in the sixteenth century. According to these sources, three separate sets of norms were developed to address the need to save life at sea: rules on the safety of navigation; rules concerning assistance to the shipwrecked and their protection; and rules on the duty of masters to provide assistance. Leaving aside the first category, the article illustrates how these sources where used by seventeenth and eighteenth century international lawyers to substantiate the existence of a duty to assist the shipwrecked and a right to seek refuge for vessels in distress. Nineteenth century scholars added the duty of the master to provide rescue. These scholarly codifications set the basis for a codification, first by learned societies and then by states, during the last decades of the nineteenth century. Codification was eventually achieved through two conventions adopted in 1910. The article argues that while the content of the duty changed to adapt to technological developments affecting navigation, as well as to changing perceptions of the sources and effects of international law, the common principle at its basis has always been part of international law
Conflict in Cooperation: Crossborder Infrastructures in Europe Facing the Second World War
Der Band befasst sich mit der grenzüberschreitenden infrastrukturellen Kooperation während des Zweiten Weltkriegs. Er vergleicht die Entwicklung bei Post, Telekommunikation, Eisenbahn und Schifffahrt und ordnet die Ergebnisse in die langfristigen Entwicklungen der Europäischen Integration ein. Damit wird die bislang dominierende These vom Zweiten Weltkrieg als Zäsur in der internationalen Kooperation in Frage gestellt. Zugleich wird gezeigt, dass grenzüberschreitende Initiativen nicht nur trotz, sondern mitunter gerade wegen des Kriegs unternommen wurden. Die einzelnen Beiträge greifen damit auch in die Debatte um das "Neue Europa" ein.This volume deals with cross-border infrastructural cooperation during the Second World War. It compares the development of postal services, telecommunications, railways and shipping, and places its findings in the context of the long-term developments of European integration. It therefore calls into question the hitherto dominant assumption that the Second World War signalled a caesura in international cooperation. At the same time, the study shows that cross-border initiatives were undertaken not only in spite of the war, but sometimes precisely because of it. The individual contributions thus also intervene in the debate on 'New Europe'
- …