1,020 research outputs found

    Do intermediate feature coalitions aid explainability of black-box models?

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    This work introduces the notion of intermediate concepts based on levels structure to aid explainability for black-box models. The levels structure is a hierarchical structure in which each level corresponds to features of a dataset (i.e., a player-set partition). The level of coarseness increases from the trivial set, which only comprises singletons, to the set, which only contains the grand coalition. In addition, it is possible to establish meronomies, i.e., part-whole relationships, via a domain expert that can be utilised to generate explanations at an abstract level. We illustrate the usability of this approach in a real-world car model example and the Titanic dataset, where intermediate concepts aid in explainability at different levels of abstraction.Comment: 14 pages,The 1st World Conference on eXplainable Artificial Intelligence, 202

    Collective agency:From philosophical and logical perspectives

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    People inhabit a vast and intricate social network nowadays. In addition to our own decisions and actions, we confront those of various groups every day. Collective decisions and actions are more complex and bewildering compared to those made by individuals. As members of a collective, we contribute to its decisions, but our contributions may not always align with the outcome. We may also find ourselves excluded from certain groups and passively subjected to their influences without being aware of the source. We are used to being in overlapping groups and may switch identities, supporting or opposing the claims of particular groups. But rarely do we pause to think: What do we talk about when we talk about groups and their decisions?At the heart of this dissertation is the question of collective agency, i.e., in what sense can we treat a group as a rational agent capable of its action. There are two perspectives we take: a philosophical and logical one. The philosophical perspective mainly discusses the ontological and epistemological issues related to collective agency, sorts out the relevant philosophical history, and argues that the combination of a relational view of collective agency and a dispositional view of collective intentionality provides a rational and realistic account. The logical perspective is associated with formal theories of groups, it disregards the psychological content involved in the philosophical perspective, establishes a logical system that is sufficiently formal and objective, and axiomatizes the nature of a collective

    A Characteristic Function for Shapley-Value-Based Attribution of Anomaly Scores

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    In anomaly detection, the degree of irregularity is often summarized as a real-valued anomaly score. We address the problem of attributing such anomaly scores to input features for interpreting the results of anomaly detection. We particularly investigate the use of the Shapley value for attributing anomaly scores of semi-supervised detection methods. We propose a characteristic function specifically designed for attributing anomaly scores. The idea is to approximate the absence of some features by locally minimizing the anomaly score with regard to the to-be-absent features. We examine the applicability of the proposed characteristic function and other general approaches for interpreting anomaly scores on multiple datasets and multiple anomaly detection methods. The results indicate the potential utility of the attribution methods including the proposed one

    Grounds for a Third Place : The Starbucks Experience, Sirens, and Space

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    My goal in this dissertation is to help demystify or “filter” the “Starbucks Experience” for a post-pandemic world, taking stock of how a multi-national company has long outgrown its humble beginnings as a wholesale coffee bean supplier to become a digitally-integrated and hypermodern cafĂ©. I look at the role Starbucks plays within the larger cultural history of the coffee house and also consider how Starbucks has been idyllically described in corporate discourse as a comfortable and discursive “third place” for informal gathering, a term that also prescribes its own radical ethos as a globally recognized customer service platform. Attempting to square Starbucks’ iconography and rhetoric with a new critical methodology, in a series of interdisciplinary case studies, I examine the role Starbucks’ “third place” philosophy plays within larger conversations about urban space and commodity culture, analyze Starbucks advertising, architecture and art, and trace the mythical rise of the Starbucks Siren (and the reiterations and re-imaginings of the Starbucks Siren in art and media). While in corporate rhetoric Starbucks’ “third place” is depicted as an enthralling adventure, full of play, discovery, authenticity, or “romance,” I draw on critical theory to discuss how it operates today as a space of distraction, isolation, and loss

    Flooded with terror: Identifying existential threat in water crisis communication and exploring gender bias in the depths of water management

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    The purpose of this dissertation was to advance understanding of gender inequity in water management and the ways in which threatening water communication may contribute to that inequity. Water crises are increasing with climate change and the communication of potentially fatal outcomes are ever-present via media and ongoing catastrophic climate events. While climate scholars have demonstrated that diverse decision-making groups lead to improved environmental and ethical outcomes – outcomes that include effective solutions to water crises – top-level water management in the Global North remains largely homogenously male. I explored this disconnect through the lens of Terror Management Theory (TMT) to identify how life-threatening water crisis communication may influence environmental attitudes and intergroup relations within water decision-making contexts. Terror Management Theory empirically tests the influence of mortality reminders on human behaviour and has identified predictable and replicable ways in which we respond to reminders of our eventual demise (Chapter One). Climate change has been established as a mortality reminder within Terror Management Theory research, as it evokes existential anxieties in those who consider experiencing climate change or its consequences. Water, however, had not previously been tested as a mortality reminder. The research within this dissertation was guided by three interconnected objectives: (1) to determine if threatening water messages evoke mortality salience similarly to typical TMT mortality reminders; (2) to identify how pro-environmental worldviews or identities are influenced by mortality salience and/or life-threatening water reminders; and (3) building on prior objectives, to determine whether judgments about same or different gendered water decision-makers are influenced by mortality salience from a typical and/or water-related mortality reminder. This dissertation followed social psychology methods as developed and applied within Terror Management Theory to identify the psychosocial responses to threatening water reminders (Chapters Two and Three) and the influence of these responses on gender dynamics within water crisis decision-making (Chapter Four). Findings provided confirmation that some framings of water crises evoked mortality anxieties in American and Canadian populations (Chapter Two) and delivered evidence of environmental identity reinforcement following a typical mortality or life-threatening water reminder (Chapter Three). Findings also illustrated that mortality salience influenced appraisal of male and female water managers, and that these appraisals were also influenced by underlying levels of sexism and, potentially, connected gender role stereotypes. In addition to academic contributions from this research, outcomes from this dissertation inform water communication campaigns (e.g., when threatening communications might be motivating for pro-environmental change and when might it not) and for guidance regarding equity efforts, particularly among leadership contexts that are presently male-dominated. Understanding how to develop and implement water crisis solutions is necessary in our changing climate. These solutions require recognizing how to best create and foster diverse, equitable decision-making groups that retain and respect that diversity so all can be meaningfully included

    From Functioning to Flourishing: How Does Drama-Led Peace Education Help People Know, Experience And Transform Conflict? A Participatory Action-Research Project in a single school

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    Building on my peace-education experience, this inquiry explored a more creative way to co-construct knowledge around conflict and transformation. As well as documenting the development of my educational praxis, this research details how social justice, liberatory education, creativity and action aligned for me and twelve child co-researchers through a participatory action research (PAR) experience. The study comprised four action-research cycles: two group cycles (the Peace PAR project) bookended by two solo-practitioner cycles. The Peace PAR project took place in an English primary school in the Midlands over two school terms, involving 12 inner-city youths aged 10–11 and four adult participants. Together, we undertook a collaborative and democratic inquiry into transformative solutions to complex relational problems. The Peace PAR Project’s process revealed the co-research group’s underlying relational conflict, including the unjust ways we treated each other and were treated by others (including adults). Our developing consciousness initiated our transformation towards radically new senses of self-perception and agency, stimulating more action as we upheld our right to be considered differently by each other and school staff. Using cycles of action and reflection to develop understanding and practice, we co-created an alternative research focus through a radical, inclusive epistemology. Four key themes emerged from the study. First, the project demonstrated how values-led, arts-engaging practices enabled the co-researchers and I to step beyond dominant discourses and rationality to deconstruct our personal and social worlds and offer alternatives. Second, blending PAR and Theatre-of-the-Oppressed methods provided a unique epistemological framework, pedagogical approach and creative methodology based on sensory knowledge substantiation: we understood by seeing, hearing and feeling. Third, the inquiry offers an original contribution to knowledge by shedding light on how young people understand peace, peaceful methods, and peaceful mechanisms of dialogue about conflict. Finally, the study demonstrates the benefits of a short-lived democratic peace education in a school environment dominated by more regulated arrangements of space, time, and bodies. As well as investigating values, oppression, conflict and peace in exploring how arts-engaged research and drama-led peace education might help people experience, know and transform conflict, this study revealed how I taught others and how others taught me within the contextual influences of our shared learning conditions. Our restorative-based, values-led inquiry valued human complexity over procedural simplicity. We concluded that radical change doesn’t need to be violent. Within the Peace PAR project, we made Our Peace

    Agonism, decision, power – The art of working unfinished

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    The current debate on agonism has become fixed in an institutional approach: How can an agonistic design institutionally become a tool against forms of domination? An agonistic space needs decisions that do not silence dissensual voices with a finite decision. This paper suggests that this agonistic approach needs de-cisions or simply put, temporary decisions drawn from seeing a decision as a solution for now. A de-cision is not a no-decision, but a decision recognised as temporary. The paper proposes ‘the sketch’ as an appropriate mode for working de-cisionally and unfinished. By having a sketch and working de-cisionally, planners are able to invite agonistic positions to ongoing talks and to act progressively, adaptably, or rationally in the face of emerging circumstances and uncertainty. To work unfinished from a sketch transforms the planning process from being a matter of reaching a finite decision to a strife about how to understand the present and which temporary contours and directions to move on from. The paper as such thus deals with difficult praxis questions, for instance: How is it possible to allow dissent to inform planning praxis in praxis? How can quarrelling and working unfinished empower planning democracy
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