South American Expert Roundtable : increasing adaptive governance capacity for coping with unintended side effects of digital transformation

This paper presents the main messages of a South American expert roundtable (ERT) on the unintended side effects (unseens) of digital transformation. The input of the ERT comprised 39 propositions from 20 experts representing 11 different perspectives. The two-day ERT discussed the main drivers and challenges as well as vulnerabilities or unseens and provided suggestions for: (i) the mechanisms underlying major unseens; (ii) understanding possible ways in which rebound effects of digital transformation may become the subject of overarching research in three main categories of impact: development factors, society, and individuals; and (iii) a set of potential action domains for transdisciplinary follow-up processes, including a case study in Brazil. A content analysis of the propositions and related mechanisms provided insights in the genesis of unseens by identifying 15 interrelated causal mechanisms related to critical issues/concerns. Additionally, a cluster analysis (CLA) was applied to structure the challenges and critical developments in South America. The discussion elaborated the genesis, dynamics, and impacts of (groups of) unseens such as the digital divide (that affects most countries that are not included in the development of digital business, management, production, etc. tools) or the challenge of restructuring small- and medium-sized enterprises (whose service is digitally substituted by digital devices). We identify specific issues and effects (for most South American countries) such as lack of governmental structure, challenging geographical structures (e.g., inclusion in high-performance transmission power), or the digital readiness of (wide parts) of society. One scientific contribution of the paper is related to the presented methodology that provides insights into the phenomena, the causal chains underlying “wanted/positive” and “unwanted/negative” effects, and the processes and mechanisms of societal changes caused by digitalization

Exercise carried out by EuroHealthNet members, led by EuroHealthNet and the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM)

Portugal - Survey respondents and Workshop participants: Caldas de Almeida, Teresa - National Institute of Health Doutor Ricardo Jorge, Head of Health Promotion Unit; Costa, Alexandra - National Institute of Health Doutor Ricardo Jorge, Senior Technical ExpertExecutive summary: recommendations for action: The COVID-19 pandemic caught the world unprepared and has changed the shape of public health – and of our lives – for the foreseeable future. A group of senior public health officials from national and regional public health agencies across Europe came together to discuss current developments, the interrelated complexities and implications for their work in the near and longterm future. This report reflects their insights into some of the most pressing societal challenges and trends for public health in the years ahead, adopting a broad definition of health which encompasses social and environmental factors. Challenges considered include the rise in social and health inequalities, the increasing pressure on health systems, and negative impacts on population mental health. They reflect both direct as well as indirect impacts of the crisis on health, such as for instance unemployment and its pathways to ill-health. Climate change and (further) environmental degradation were highlighted as key longterm challenges. The exercise also included setting out opportunities, such as the fact that public health has been put in the spotlight and is at the centre of political agendas and public mindsets. The group concluded that “building back better” from the pandemic could provide an opportunity to strengthen health promotion and disease prevention, to bring more sectors together around the topic of health, including mental health and to enable citizens to adopt healthier, more sustainable behaviours. The importance of community action and social cohesion during the pandemic also provides opportunities to boost local level initiatives and networks. Over the next months and years, actions need to be taken to tackle the challenges at the root level, cushion the impacts of crisis and mitigation measures and encourage positive developments. Public health actors and agencies continue to have a pivotal role to ensuring a resilient, inclusive and sustainable recovery from the pandemic. This foresight exercise led to a draft set of recommendations for how different actors can help bring this about. The recommendations were discussed and validated in a EuroHealthNet partnership workshop in November 2020 and reflect this exchangeAim: EuroHealthNet and its member organisations have important roles to play in the future of public health in Europe, as well as on the ground in their home countries. They monitor, analyse and act to protect and improve the health of the population. This foresight exercise aimed to understand and discuss some of the trends and challenges but also the potential opportunities that have arisen from the pandemic, to inform members’ strategies and their work. It also sought to provide input for EuroHealthNet’s strategy for the coming years and explore how the partnership can positively contribute to “building back better”. The exercise, and this report, also aims to be useful to the broader stakeholder community, working on or around public health at local, national and EU level.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

KD-ACP: A Software Framework for Social Computing in Emergency Management

This paper addresses the application of a computational theory and related techniques for studying emergency management in social computing. We propose a novel software framework called KD-ACP. The framework provides a systematic and automatic platform for scientists to study the emergency management problems in three aspects: modelling the society in emergency scenario as the artificial society; investigating the emergency management problems by the repeat computational experiments; parallel execution between artificial society and the actual society managed by the decisions from computational experiments. The software framework is composed of a series of tools. These tools are categorized into three parts corresponding to “A,” “C,” and “P,” respectively. Using H1N1 epidemic in Beijing city as the case study, the modelling and data generating of Beijing city, experiments with settings of H1N1, and intervention measures and parallel execution by situation tool are implemented by KD-ACP. The results output by the software framework shows that the emergency response decisions can be tested to find a more optimal one through the computational experiments. In the end, the advantages of the KD-ACP and the future work are summarized in the conclusion

Global Risks 2015, 10th Edition.

The 2015 edition of the Global Risks report completes a decade of highlighting the most significant long-term risks worldwide, drawing on the perspectives of experts and global decision-makers. Over that time, analysis has moved from risk identification to thinking through risk interconnections and the potentially cascading effects that result. Taking this effort one step further, this year's report underscores potential causes as well as solutions to global risks. Not only do we set out a view on 28 global risks in the report's traditional categories (economic, environmental, societal, geopolitical and technological) but also we consider the drivers of those risks in the form of 13 trends. In addition, we have selected initiatives for addressing significant challenges, which we hope will inspire collaboration among business, government and civil society communitie

Accountability in Managing Artificial Intelligence: State of the Art and a way forward for Information Systems Research

Establishing accountability for Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems is challenging due to the distribution of responsibilities among multiple actors involved in their development, deployment, and use. Nonetheless, AI accountability is crucial. As AI can affect all aspects of private and professional life, the actors involved in AI lifecycles need to take responsibility for their decisions and actions, be ready to respond to interrogations by those affected by AI and held liable when AI works in unacceptable ways. Despite the significance of AI accountability, the Information Systems research community has not engaged much with the topic and lacks a systematic understanding of existing approaches to it. This paper present the results of a comprehensive conceptual literature review that synthetizes current knowledge on AI accountability. The paper contributes to the IS literature by providing (i) conceptual clarification mapping different accountability conceptualizations; (ii) a comprehensive framework for AI accountability challenges and actionable responses at three different levels: system, process, data and; (iii) a framing of AI accountability as a a socio-technical and organizational problem that IS researchers are well-equipped to study highlighting the need to balance instrumental and humanistic outcomes

Integration of social values in a multi-agent platform running in a supercomputer

Agent-based modelling is one of the most suitable ways to simulate and analyse complex problems and scenarios, especially those involving social interactions. Multi-agent systems, consisting of multiple agents in a simulation environment, are widely used to understand emergent behaviour in various fields such as sociology, economics and policy. However, existing multi-agent platforms often face challenges in terms of scalability and reasoning capacity. Some platforms can scale well in terms of computation, but lack sophisticated reasoning mechanisms. On the other hand, some platforms employ complex reasoning systems, but this can compromise their scalability. In this work, we have extended an existing platform developed at UPC that enables scalable, parallel HTN planning for complex agents. Our main goal has been to improve the analysis of social relationships between agents by incorporating moral values. Building on previous work done by David Marín on the implementation of the platform, we have made extensions and modifications both formally and in the implementation. We have formalised the additions to the system model and provided an updated implementation. Finally, we have presented a complex example scenario that demonstrates all the additions we have made. This scenario allows us to show how agents' preferences and moral values influence their decisions and actions in a simulated environment. Through this work, we have sought to improve the existing platform and fulfil the spirit and purpose of the platform

Using Analytical Information for Digital Business Transformation through DataOps: A Review and Conceptual Framework

Organisations are increasingly practising business analytics to generate actionable insights that can guide their digital business transformation. Transforming business digitally using business analytics is an ongoing process that requires an integrated and disciplined approach to leveraging analytics and promoting collaboration. An emerging business analytics practice, Data Operations (DataOps), provides a disciplined approach for organisations to collaborate using analytical information for digital business transformation. We propose a conceptual framework by reviewing the literature on business analytics, DataOps and organisational information processing theory (OIPT). This conceptual framework explains how organisations can employ DataOps as an integrated and disciplined approach for developing the analytical information processing capability and facilitating boundary-spanning activities required for digital business transformation. This research (a) extends current knowledge on digital transformation by linking it with business analytics from the perspective of OIPT and boundary-spanning activities, and (b) presents DataOps as a novel approach for using analytical information for digital business transformation

Vortex of the Web. Potentials of the online environment

This volume compiles international contributions that explore the potential risks and chances coming along with the wide-scale migration of society into digital space. Suggesting a shift of paradigm from Spiral of Silence to Nexus of Noise, the opening chapter provides an overview on systematic approaches and mechanisms of manipulation – ranging from populist political players to Cambridge Analytica. After a discussion of the the juxtaposition effects of social media use on social environments, the efficient instrumentalization of Twitter by Turkish politicans in the course of the US-decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is being analyzed. Following a case study of Instagram, Black Lives Matter and racism is a research about the impact of online pornography on the academic performance of university students. Another chapter is pointing out the potential of online tools for the successful relaunch of shadow brands. The closing section of the book deals with the role of social media on the opinion formation about the Euromaidan movement during the Ukrainian revolution and offers a comparative study touching on Russian and Western depictions of political documentaries in the 2000s