The identity-extremism nexus in virtual groups: the impact of online group alignment on radicalisation towards violence

Can would-be perpetrators of extreme violence be reliably identified by the linguistic traces they unintentionally leave behind in their online communications? Previous research has shown that identity fusion, a visceral feeling of oneness with the group, can motivate violent self-sacrifice when the in-group is threatened. This thesis tests the hypothesis that a higher degree of identify fusion in online groups, coupled with a range of mediating and moderating variables, increases the likelihood of individuals carrying out violent pro-group action. To date, there has been no systematic analysis of the relationship between identity dynamics within virtual communities and radicalisation towards violence. This research project seeks to fill this gap by investigating the relationship between identity fusion in the digital arena and violent extremist activities in the real world. Using a mixed methods approach, the project combines quantitative natural language processing (NLP) analysis with quantitative text analysis and digital ethnographic research. The first part of the thesis presents a new coding scheme that traces the narratives and linguistic markers found across the written statements published by terrorists prior to launching an attack. A total of 4,000 pages by 15 authors, on a spectrum from violent terrorist to non-violent political manifestos, were analysed in a comparative manifesto analysis and tested via intercoder reliability (ICR) analysis. The statistical and ethnographic findings indicate that linguistic proxies for identity fusion and other relevant variables, such as violence-condoning group norms and dehumanising vocabulary, can be reliably identified and are significantly more prevalent in the documents of would-be terrorists. A weighted score, the so-called “Violence Risk Index”, was created, drawing on the statistical findings of the manifesto analysis. This new language-based violence risk assessment framework was then applied to eight online groups varying in their degree of extreme ideologies, verbal commitment to violence, and real-world links to terrorist activities. A total of over one million messages were collected from online forums and messaging apps and investigated with a view to determining the scale and nature of violence-predicting narratives and language in each of the groups. The calculated Violence Risk Index for each group mirrored the level of real-world engagement in extreme violence and terrorism, thus providing preliminary evidence that the assessment framework offers an accurate estimation of violence risk associated with online groups. This thesis argues that psychologically grounded linguistic markers are a more reliable predictor of extreme violence than taking violent threats at face value. While this project’s findings should be treated with caution, they may contribute to complementing and improving existing early warning systems used by security and intelligence services

The Role of Surveillance Technologies in Brazil’s Public Security: Addressing Legal and Ethical Concerns

openAs the Fourth Industrial Revolution unfolds, intertwining technological advancements with societal fabric, the captivating exploration of surveillance technologies within public security unfolds as a multifaceted and interdisciplinary investigation, scrutinizing contemporary society through the intersecting lenses of governance, politics, law, and rights. The study delves into the profound relevance of cutting-edge tools such as artificial intelligence, data analytics, and interconnected systems for the empowerment of unprecedented surveillance capabilities, under public security context. In this manner, the overarching goal of this research is to comprehensively investigate the intricate relationship in Brazil, a nation susceptible to testing emerging trends and widespread deployment of such technologies. Employing a qualitative methodology through an exploratory approach, the study takes into account their historical evolution, integration processes, and the legal and ethical dimensions that accompany their deployment. Starting from a solid theoretical framework that emphasizes the parallels between modern surveillance techniques and power dynamics with the contemporary character, it analyzes ongoing surveillance-based projects and models towards public security through Brazilian territory. Revealing the imperative for a nuanced balance between public safety imperatives and the protection of individual rights, the study identifies technological limitations, particularly errors in facial recognition, and emphasizes the risks of algorithmic biases, especially in a racially diverse society like Brazil. It addresses the existing legal gap in data protection laws related to public security and criminal investigation, advocating for a comprehensive regulatory framework that safeguards fundamental rights. In conclusion, the research not only broadens the understanding of historical, ethical, and legal dimensions but also underscores the significance of a balanced and informed approach in deploying and regulating surveillance tools. The findings pave the way for further studies on public security policies, operational efficiency, innovation, and the protection of fundamental rights, revealing promising avenues for future research and discourse in contemporary society.As the Fourth Industrial Revolution unfolds, intertwining technological advancements with societal fabric, the captivating exploration of surveillance technologies within public security unfolds as a multifaceted and interdisciplinary investigation, scrutinizing contemporary society through the intersecting lenses of governance, politics, law, and rights. The study delves into the profound relevance of cutting-edge tools such as artificial intelligence, data analytics, and interconnected systems for the empowerment of unprecedented surveillance capabilities, under public security context. In this manner, the overarching goal of this research is to comprehensively investigate the intricate relationship in Brazil, a nation susceptible to testing emerging trends and widespread deployment of such technologies. Employing a qualitative methodology through an exploratory approach, the study takes into account their historical evolution, integration processes, and the legal and ethical dimensions that accompany their deployment. Starting from a solid theoretical framework that emphasizes the parallels between modern surveillance techniques and power dynamics with the contemporary character, it analyzes ongoing surveillance-based projects and models towards public security through Brazilian territory. Revealing the imperative for a nuanced balance between public safety imperatives and the protection of individual rights, the study identifies technological limitations, particularly errors in facial recognition, and emphasizes the risks of algorithmic biases, especially in a racially diverse society like Brazil. It addresses the existing legal gap in data protection laws related to public security and criminal investigation, advocating for a comprehensive regulatory framework that safeguards fundamental rights. In conclusion, the research not only broadens the understanding of historical, ethical, and legal dimensions but also underscores the significance of a balanced and informed approach in deploying and regulating surveillance tools. The findings pave the way for further studies on public security policies, operational efficiency, innovation, and the protection of fundamental rights, revealing promising avenues for future research and discourse in contemporary society

NKOTA WATA: Mining and metaphor in Hamtai-Anga "Gold Dreaming"

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This work examines a series of mining-related dream narratives as a means of gauging how a community of New Guinean artisanal and small-scale gold miners understands the nature of minerals and their place in the cosmos, and how this cosmological outlook informs the ways they operate qua resource extractors. Through a "structural-metaphorical" analysis of the symbolic themes and ethnographic context of Hamtai-Anga "gold dreaming, " my thesis demonstrates that the miners of Kaindi conceptualise resource extraction in terms of a set of collaborative, procreative, and nurturing relations of "marriage" and of "affinity" between themselves, their spirit familiars, and the masalai (or guardian spirits) of the mines. According to this complex "holography of meaning", the miners are able to "generate”, “exercise, " and "make apparent" their extractive efficacy through a relational and elicitive engagement with their gendered "other"- or, in other words, by means of their capacity to make their female spirit familiars "fall in love" with them, "procreate" minerals like women procreate children, procure gold as wives provide garden food, and link them to the spirits of the mines as women link men to their in-laws. In order to secure and maintain their elicitive power, however, the miners must "enact" this metaphor by "behaving like" "good husbands" and "good affines" towards their familiars and the spirits of the mines. In turn, this means that the tropic conceptualisation of mining as conjugality and affinity with the masalai\familiars is a recipe for action imbued with its own intrinsic morality. This morality, moreover, is itself of an essentially holographic nature. Indeed, not only does it entail analogous normative structures at different "orders" of scale (that is both at the "microcosmic" "level" of interaction between the miners and their human spouses and affines, and in the "macrocosmic" plane of exchange between humans, spirit familiars, and spirits of the mines) but, as is revealed in my thesis, the two "orders" at which it unfolds are actually part of a single whole, so that the flow of analogy at the "macrocosmic" "level" has crucial implications for its "microcosmic" counter-flow, and vice-versa.Funding was obtained from Brunel University and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)

Data-driven maintenance of military systems:Potential and challenges

The success of military missions is largely dependent on the reliability and availability of the systems that are used. In modern warfare, data is considered as an important weapon, both in offence and defence. However, collection and analysis of the proper data can also play a crucial role in reducing the number of system failures, and thus increase the system availability and military performance considerably. In this chapter, the concept of data-driven maintenance will be introduced. First, the various maturity levels, ranging from detection of failures and automated diagnostics to advanced condition monitoring and predictive maintenance are introduced. Then, the different types of data and associated decisions are discussed. And finally, six practical cases from the Dutch MoD will be used to demonstrate the benefits of this concept and discuss the challenges that are encountered in applying this in military practice

Suffolk University Academic Catalog, College of Arts and Sciences and Sawyer Business School, 2022-2023

This catalog contains information for both the undergraduate and graduate programs in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Sawyer Business School.https://dc.suffolk.edu/cassbs-catalogs/1184/thumbnail.jp

AI for social good: social media mining of migration discourse

The number of international migrants has steadily increased over the years, and it has become one of the pressing issues in today’s globalized world. Our bibliometric review of around 400 articles on Scopus platform indicates an increased interest in migration-related research in recent times but the extant research is scattered at best. AI-based opinion mining research has predominantly noted negative sentiments across various social media platforms. Additionally, we note that prior studies have mostly considered social media data in the context of a particular event or a specific context. These studies offered a nuanced view of the societal opinions regarding that specific event, but this approach might miss the forest for the trees. Hence, this dissertation makes an attempt to go beyond simplistic opinion mining to identify various latent themes of migrant-related social media discourse. The first essay draws insights from the social psychology literature to investigate two facets of Twitter discourse, i.e., perceptions about migrants and behaviors toward migrants. We identified two prevailing perceptions (i.e., sympathy and antipathy) and two dominant behaviors (i.e., solidarity and animosity) of social media users toward migrants. Additionally, this essay has also fine-tuned the binary hate speech detection task, specifically in the context of migrants, by highlighting the granular differences between the perceptual and behavioral aspects of hate speech. The second essay investigates the journey of migrants or refugees from their home to the host country. We draw insights from Gennep's seminal book, i.e., Les Rites de Passage, to identify four phases of their journey: Arrival of Refugees, Temporal stay at Asylums, Rehabilitation, and Integration of Refugees into the host nation. We consider multimodal tweets for this essay. We find that our proposed theoretical framework was relevant for the 2022 Ukrainian refugee crisis – as a use-case. Our third essay points out that a limited sample of annotated data does not provide insights regarding the prevailing societal-level opinions. Hence, this essay employs unsupervised approaches on large-scale societal datasets to explore the prevailing societal-level sentiments on YouTube platform. Specifically, it probes whether negative comments about migrants get endorsed by other users. If yes, does it depend on who the migrants are – especially if they are cultural others? To address these questions, we consider two datasets: YouTube comments before the 2022 Ukrainian refugee crisis, and during the crisis. Second dataset confirms the Cultural Us hypothesis, and our findings are inconclusive for the first dataset. Our final or fourth essay probes social integration of migrants. The first part of this essay probed the unheard and faint voices of migrants to understand their struggle to settle down in the host economy. The second part of this chapter explored the viability of social media platforms as a viable alternative to expensive commercial job portals for vulnerable migrants. Finally, in our concluding chapter, we elucidated the potential of explainable AI, and briefly pointed out the inherent biases of transformer-based models in the context of migrant-related discourse. To sum up, the importance of migration was recognized as one of the essential topics in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Thus, this dissertation has attempted to make an incremental contribution to the AI for Social Good discourse

Computational and Simulation Modeling of Political Attitudes: the 'Tiger' Area of Political Culture Research

In almost one century long history, political attitudes modeling research has accumulated a critical mass of theory and method. Its characteristics and particularities have often suggested that political attitude approach to political persuasion modeling reveals a strong theoretical autonomy of concept which entitles it to become a new separate discipline of research. Though this did not actually happen, political attitudes modeling research has remained the most challenging area - the "tiger" - of political culture modeling research. This paper reviews the research literature on the conceptual, computational and simulation modeling of political attitudes developed starting with the beginning of the 20th century until the present times. Several computational and simulation modeling paradigms have provided support to political attitudes modeling research. These paradigms and the shift from one to another are briefly presented for a period of time of almost one century. The dominant paradigmatic views are those inspired by the Newtonian mechanics, and those based on the principle of methodological individualism and the emergence of macro phenomena from the individual interactions at the micro level of a society. This period of time is divided in eight ages covering the history of ideas in a wide range of political domains, going from political attitudes to polity modeling. Internal and external pressures for paradigmatic change are briefly explained