879 research outputs found

    Multidisciplinary perspectives on Artificial Intelligence and the law

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    This open access book presents an interdisciplinary, multi-authored, edited collection of chapters on Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) and the Law. AI technology has come to play a central role in the modern data economy. Through a combination of increased computing power, the growing availability of data and the advancement of algorithms, AI has now become an umbrella term for some of the most transformational technological breakthroughs of this age. The importance of AI stems from both the opportunities that it offers and the challenges that it entails. While AI applications hold the promise of economic growth and efficiency gains, they also create significant risks and uncertainty. The potential and perils of AI have thus come to dominate modern discussions of technology and ethics – and although AI was initially allowed to largely develop without guidelines or rules, few would deny that the law is set to play a fundamental role in shaping the future of AI. As the debate over AI is far from over, the need for rigorous analysis has never been greater. This book thus brings together contributors from different fields and backgrounds to explore how the law might provide answers to some of the most pressing questions raised by AI. An outcome of the Católica Research Centre for the Future of Law and its interdisciplinary working group on Law and Artificial Intelligence, it includes contributions by leading scholars in the fields of technology, ethics and the law.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    The Impact of Disruptive Technologies in Finance and Accounting: A Systematic Literature Review

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    Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Knowledge Management and Business IntelligenceThe digital transition era, marked by a strong evolution of Information Technologies, and its massive expansion towards all products, services, and sectors, has changed all known methods for carrying out and conducting all sorts of professional practices. Within the scope of accounting activities and transactions related to accounting, various tasks have started to be automatized with the help of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Hence, no longer existing the need of spending time on some of the repetitive day-to-day tasks, professionals in these areas will have more time and freedom to perform predictive business analysis, to collect and report financial data, which will most likely become vital to assist decision-making and possible attraction of new investments. As such, there is a clear link between accounting and the emergence of disruptive technologies, which indicates an interesting research area for accounting information systems researchers. What is the impact of disruptive technologies in accounting practices? What is the role played by accountants to work alongside their digital colleagues? What are the skills that accountants may have to be future proof in an ever-changing digital environment? This dissertation aims to answer these questions by following a qualitative and exploratory approach, through a systematic literature review. The analysis reveals that the impact of disruptive technologies in finance and accounting can be summarized in four main domains, Strategic Management, Technology Innovation, Business Acumen and Operations and Accounting Provision. We review the content of recent academic literature regarding the relationship between disruptive technologies and accounting and highlight research gaps and opportunities for future research

    Modern meat: the next generation of meat from cells

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    Modern Meat is the first textbook on cultivated meat, with contributions from over 100 experts within the cultivated meat community. The Sections of Modern Meat comprise 5 broad categories of cultivated meat: Context, Impact, Science, Society, and World. The 19 chapters of Modern Meat, spread across these 5 sections, provide detailed entries on cultivated meat. They extensively tour a range of topics including the impact of cultivated meat on humans and animals, the bioprocess of cultivated meat production, how cultivated meat may become a food option in Space and on Mars, and how cultivated meat may impact the economy, culture, and tradition of Asia

    Management of socio-economic transformations of business processes: current realities, global challenges, forecast scenarios and development prospects

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    The authors of the scientific monograph have come to the conclusion that мanagement of socio-economic transformations of business processes requires the use of mechanisms to support of entrepreneurship, sectors of the national economy, the financial system, and critical infrastructure. Basic research focuses on assessment the state of social service provision, analysing economic security, implementing innovation and introducing digital technologies. The research results have been implemented in the different models of costing, credit risk and capital management, tax control, use of artificial intelligence and blockchain. The results of the study can be used in the developing of policies, programmes and strategies for economic security, development of the agricultural sector, transformation of industrial policy, implementation of employment policy in decision-making at the level of ministries and agencies that regulate the management of socio-economic and European integration processes. The results can also be used by students and young scientists in the educational process and conducting scientific research on global challenges and creation scenarios for the development of socio-economic processes

    The European Experience: A Multi-Perspective History of Modern Europe, 1500–2000

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    The European Experience brings together the expertise of nearly a hundred historians from eight European universities to internationalise and diversify the study of modern European history, exploring a grand sweep of time from 1500 to 2000. Offering a valuable corrective to the Anglocentric narratives of previous English-language textbooks, scholars from all over Europe have pooled their knowledge on comparative themes such as identities, cultural encounters, power and citizenship, and economic development to reflect the complexity and heterogeneous nature of the European experience. Rather than another grand narrative, the international author teams offer a multifaceted and rich perspective on the history of the continent of the past 500 years. Each major theme is dissected through three chronological sub-chapters, revealing how major social, political and historical trends manifested themselves in different European settings during the early modern (1500–1800), modern (1800–1900) and contemporary period (1900–2000). This resource is of utmost relevance to today’s history students in the light of ongoing internationalisation strategies for higher education curricula, as it delivers one of the first multi-perspective and truly ‘European’ analyses of the continent’s past. Beyond the provision of historical content, this textbook equips students with the intellectual tools to interrogate prevailing accounts of European history, and enables them to seek out additional perspectives in a bid to further enrich the discipline

    Driving Manufacturing Systems for the Fourth Industrial Revolution

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    It has been a long way since the aroused of the Industry 4.0 and the companies' reality is not already align with this new concept. Industry 4.0 is ongoing slowly as it was expected that its maturity level should be higher. The companies´ managers should have a different approach to the adoption of the industry 4.0 enabling technologies on their manufacturing systems to create smart nets along all production process with the connection of elements on the manu-facturing system such as machines, employees, and systems. These smart nets can control and make autonomous decisions efficiently. Moreover, in the industry 4.0 environment, companies can predict problems and failures along all production process and react sooner regarding maintenance or production changes for instance. The industry 4.0 environment is a challenging area because changes the relation between humans and machines. In this way, the scope of this thesis is to contribute to companies adopting the industry 4.0 enabling technologies in their manufacturing systems to improve their competitiveness to face the incoming future. For this purpose, this thesis integrates a research line oriented to i) the understanding of the industry 4.0 concepts, and its enabling technologies to perform the vision of the smart factory, ii) the analysis of the industry 4.0 maturity level on a regional industrial sector and to understand how companies are facing the digital transformation challenges and its barriers, iii) to analyze in deep the industry 4.0 adoption in a company and understand how this company can reach higher maturity levels, and iv) the development of strategic scenarios to help companies on the digital transition, proposing risk mitigations plans and a methodology to develop stra-tegic scenarios. This thesis highlights several barriers to industry 4.0 adoption and also brings new ones to academic and practitioner discussion. The companies' perception related to these barriers Is also discussed in this thesis. The findings of this thesis are of significant interest to companies and managers as they can position themselves along this research line and take advantage of it using all phases of this thesis to perform a better knowledge of this industrial revolution, how to perform better industry 4.0 maturity levels and they can position themselves in the proposed strategic scenarios to take the necessary actions to better face this industrial revolution. In this way, it is proposed this research line for companies to accelerate their digital transformation.Já existe um longo percurso desde o aparecimento da indústria 4.0 e a realidade das empresas ainda não está alinhada com este novo conceito. A indústria 4.0 está em andamento lento, pois era esperado que o seu nível de maturidade fosse maior. Os gestores das empresas devem ter uma abordagem diferente na adoção das tecnologias facilitadoras da indústria 4.0 nos seus sistemas produtivos para criar redes inteligentes ao longo de todo o processo produtivo com a conexão de elementos do sistema produtivo como máquinas, operários e sistemas. Estas redes inteligentes podem controlar e tomar decisões autónomas com eficiência. Além disso, no ambiente da indústria 4.0, as empresas podem prever problemas e falhas ao longo de todo o processo produtivo e reagir mais cedo em relação a manutenções ou mudanças de produção, por exemplo. O ambiente da indústria 4.0 é uma área desafiadora devido às mudanças na relação entre humanos e máquinas. Desta forma, o objetivo desta tese é contribuir para que as empresas adotem as tecnologias facilitadoras das indústria 4.0 nos seus sistemas produtivos por forma a melhorar sua competitividade para enfrentar o futuro que se aproxima. Para isso, esta tese integra uma linha de investigação orientada para i) a compreensão dos conceitos da indústria 4.0, e suas tecnologias facilitadores para realizar a visão da fábrica inteligente, ii) a análise do nível de maturidade da indústria 4.0 num setor industrial regional e entender como as empresas estão enfrentando os desafios da transformação digital e suas barreiras, iii) analisar a fundo a adoção da indústria 4.0 numa empresa e entender como essa empresa pode atingir níveis mais elevados de maturidade, e iv) o desenvolvimento de cenários estratégicos para ajudar as empresas na transição digital, propondo planos de mitigação de riscos e uma metodologia para desenvolver cenários estratégicos. Esta tese destaca várias barreiras à adoção da indústria 4.0 e também traz novas barreiras para a discussão acadêmica e profissional. A perceção das empresas em relação a essas barreiras também é discutida nesta tese. As descobertas nesta tese são de grande interesse para empresas e gestores, pois podem-se posicionar ao longo desta linha de investigação e aproveitá-la utilizando todas as fases desta tese para obter um melhor conhecimento desta revolução industrial, como obter melhores níveis de maturidade da indústria 4.0 e possam posicionar-se nos cenários estratégicos propostos por forma a tomar as ações necessárias para melhorar o envolvimento nesta revolução industrial. Desta forma, propõe-se esta linha de investigação para que as empresas acelerem a sua transformação digital

    Imagining & Sensing: Understanding and Extending the Vocalist-Voice Relationship Through Biosignal Feedback

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    The voice is body and instrument. Third-person interpretation of the voice by listeners, vocal teachers, and digital agents is centred largely around audio feedback. For a vocalist, physical feedback from within the body provides an additional interaction. The vocalist’s understanding of their multi-sensory experiences is through tacit knowledge of the body. This knowledge is difficult to articulate, yet awareness and control of the body are innate. In the ever-increasing emergence of technology which quantifies or interprets physiological processes, we must remain conscious also of embodiment and human perception of these processes. Focusing on the vocalist-voice relationship, this thesis expands knowledge of human interaction and how technology influences our perception of our bodies. To unite these different perspectives in the vocal context, I draw on mixed methods from cog- nitive science, psychology, music information retrieval, and interactive system design. Objective methods such as vocal audio analysis provide a third-person observation. Subjective practices such as micro-phenomenology capture the experiential, first-person perspectives of the vocalists them- selves. Quantitative-qualitative blend provides details not only on novel interaction, but also an understanding of how technology influences existing understanding of the body. I worked with vocalists to understand how they use their voice through abstract representations, use mental imagery to adapt to altered auditory feedback, and teach fundamental practice to others. Vocalists use multi-modal imagery, for instance understanding physical sensations through auditory sensations. The understanding of the voice exists in a pre-linguistic representation which draws on embodied knowledge and lived experience from outside contexts. I developed a novel vocal interaction method which uses measurement of laryngeal muscular activations through surface electromyography. Biofeedback was presented to vocalists through soni- fication. Acting as an indicator of vocal activity for both conscious and unconscious gestures, this feedback allowed vocalists to explore their movement through sound. This formed new perceptions but also questioned existing understanding of the body. The thesis also uncovers ways in which vocalists are in control and controlled by, work with and against their bodies, and feel as a single entity at times and totally separate entities at others. I conclude this thesis by demonstrating a nuanced account of human interaction and perception of the body through vocal practice, as an example of how technological intervention enables exploration and influence over embodied understanding. This further highlights the need for understanding of the human experience in embodied interaction, rather than solely on digital interpretation, when introducing technology into these relationships

    Beyond Quantity: Research with Subsymbolic AI

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    How do artificial neural networks and other forms of artificial intelligence interfere with methods and practices in the sciences? Which interdisciplinary epistemological challenges arise when we think about the use of AI beyond its dependency on big data? Not only the natural sciences, but also the social sciences and the humanities seem to be increasingly affected by current approaches of subsymbolic AI, which master problems of quality (fuzziness, uncertainty) in a hitherto unknown way. But what are the conditions, implications, and effects of these (potential) epistemic transformations and how must research on AI be configured to address them adequately
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