Algorithmic Decision-Making Concerns for Software: Non-Functional Requirement Elicitation as a Solution

Reference [1,2] Millions of software are lunched yearly and this software depend on data to produce required output. Personal data privacy and security has been a source of public concern for some time, and is usually interpreted in terms of data obtained from interaction with software. It is difficult to know whether a software system's decisions are fair and what considerations were put in place  in the system's internal decision-making process if the system's decisions are opaque. This has the potential to cause injustice and bias. In addition, a lack of openness may lead to a decrease in user acceptance and happiness. Algorithmic data-driven decision-making systems are becoming more automated, and they've had a lot of success in a lot of different applications. The General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union and other regulations limits algorithmic use of personal data and has fueled the dispute over the right to disclosure. This research adapted a crowd requirements elicitation model to develop a framework for the proper elicitation non-functional requirement. The developed model uses natural language processing integrated into a chatbot and a document extraction strategy since non-functional requirement exist also as government regulations and industrial standards. Proper and comprehensive elicitation of non-functional requirements will give accurate information on how the system performs its required task and such documents are best in terms of openness to the use of data by algorithms to avoid algorithm decision making concerns.   

Buy High Sell Low: Redefining Bean Counting in the Coffee Industry for a Sustainable Future

Charles Manz returns to the JVBL providing ‒ together with several fellow researchers/writers ‒ a case study of a socially responsible business within the coffee industry. Familiar CSR concepts are examined such as Fair Trade and sustainability which foster parity in dealing with buyers while maintaining product quality and reasonable income. The practices of Dean’s Beans, a progressive coffee organization, are examined as a notable demonstration of how a business can fiscally succeed while maintaining a commitment to the triple-bottom-line considerations of people, planet, and profits

Evolution of female multiple mating : A quantitative model of the “sexually selected sperm” hypothesis

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Fluid model for a network operating under a fair bandwidth-sharing policy

We consider a model of Internet congestion control that represents the randomly varying number of flows present in a network where bandwidth is shared fairly between document transfers. We study critical fluid models obtained as formal limits under law of large numbers scalings when the average load on at least one resource is equal to its capacity. We establish convergence to equilibria for fluid models and identify the invariant manifold. The form of the invariant manifold gives insight into the phenomenon of entrainment whereby congestion at some resources may prevent other resources from working at their full capacity

A path to purposive formalism: interpreting Chapter III for judicial independence and impartiality

This paper queries which method of interpreting Chapter III of Australia\u27s Constitution can best achieve the independence and impartiality of the federal judicature.AbstractThe interpretation of the separation of federal judicial power derived from Chapter III of the Constitution is as hotly debated as it is fundamentally important. Two key viewpoints have emerged in this debate, formalism and functionalism. A formalist test focusing on definitional characteristics governs the permissible powers of federal courts. A functionalist test looking to whether a power is incompatible with institutional independence and integrity limits the powers of State courts and of judges personae designatae. A rare point of consensus between the two viewpoints, and the central pillar of my critique, is that Chapter III is purposive and should be interpreted to achieve judicial independence and impartiality. This paper queries which method of interpretation can best achieve the independence and impartiality of the federal judicature. The analysis highlights the inherent strengths and weaknesses of each approach and ultimately leads to the identification of a preferred approach I call ‘purposive formalism’. Purposive formalism is a two-tiered method harnessing the strict formalist framework and a compatibility test. It is proposed as a legitimate and significant step forward in the interpretation of Chapter III to achieve the independence and impartiality of the federal judicature

Defining absolute environmental limits for the built environment

The question addressed is whether it is possible to define working limits on environmental impacts from the built environment in terms of global carrying capacity. The main focus is on energy-related impacts, since these are global and relatively well-understood. Four possible approaches to defining limits are explored: static equilibrium, asymptotic, integral of excess and planned future. The conclusions that emerge from this exploration are that global environmental constraints are very tight, but also that they are dynamically and strongly influenced by the trajectory of social and technological development over the coming century. Their use as the basis for practical, quantitative metrics of sustainability, therefore, involves a large measure of subjectivity. A fifth approach - the developmental approach - is identified, which instead of focusing on long-term external constraints to human activity, focuses instead on the internal, short- to medium-term dynamics of the built environment itself. It appears likely that the developmental approach, guided by qualitative conclusions from the analysis of global carrying capacity, is likely to be most fruitful