Discontinuous Technological Change and Relaxations of Regulatory Restrictions to Achieve Societal Objectives for the Environment, with Focus on IP Protections

We address cases where improvements in information technology for measurement and monitoring should result in regulatory relaxation, in contrast with much recent research, which focuses on situations where these improvements should result in increased regulatory restrictions on the actions permitted by large platform operators. We focus specifically on the problem of reducing environmental degradation, and we explore how regulatory restrictions associated with intellectual property (IP) rights should be relaxed in the presence of demonstrable reductions in environmental impact that result from improvements made by parties other than the owners of the IP. We explore how Environmental Impact Merit should be used to compel the owner of the IP to adopt improvements and to compel compensation to the improver. Future research will develop additional examples where regulatory relaxation is appropriate

When Ideas Migrate: A Postcolonial Perspective on Biomodd [LBA2]

This paper was completed as part of the Marie Curie Initial Training Network FP7-PEOPLE-2013-ITN, CogNovo, grant number 604764.Biomodd is a global series of art installations in which computer technology and ecology converge. Computer networks built from upcycled computer components are provided with living internal ecosystems. In a symbiotic exchange, plants and algae live alongside electronics and use the latter’s waste heat to thrive. Sensors and robotics provide additional interaction possibilities with the organisms. The first version of the project was completed in the US, while the second version was built in the Philippines. Using a postcolonial stance, we reflect on the challenges involved in translating the project from one context to another. We focus on issues related to heat recycling in the tropics; authenticity and hybridity; obsolescence and the convertibility of capital; cultural sampling, remixing, and appropriation; and structures for social organization. We advance Biomodd as a significant contribution to artscience collaborative initiatives in the global South

Investigating materiality for a renewed focus on data design practice

This paper attempts to question reductionist processes of data science that help sustain digital economies and proposes a new perspective for data practice through design. It follows recent discussions about the materiality of data in design and proposes a new notion of data materiality that unfolds its ethical and ecological aspects from a philosophical point of view. This is presented as an opportunity to envision how data can be enacted as data practice within a system. We provide an example that illustrates different kinds of data and data practices, and how ethical and ecological challenges can emerge in a system. We show how systemic challenges can be alleviated within this new notion of data, demonstrating why recovering data materiality is crucial for an ecological future. We finally argue that designers play a significant role in this context, producing practical examples that extend theoretical discussions on data materiality.general public, scientific community, industry, civil society, policy maker

An efficient coding approach to the debate on grounded cognition

The debate between the amodal and the grounded views of cognition seems to be stuck. Their only substantial disagreement is about the vehicle or format of concepts. Amodal theorists reject the grounded claim that concepts are couched in the same modality-specific format as representations in sensory systems. The problem is that there is no clear characterization of (modal or amodal) format or its neural correlate. In order to make the disagreement empirically meaningful and move forward in the discussion we need a neurocognitive criterion for representational format. I argue that efficient coding models in computational neuroscience can be used to characterize modal codes: These are codes which satisfy special informational demands imposed by sensory tasks. Additionally, I examine recent studies on neural coding and argue that although they do not provide conclusive evidence for either the grounded or the amodal views, they can be used to determine what predictions these approaches can make and what experimental and theoretical developments would be required to settle the debate

An efficient coding approach to the debate on grounded cognition

The debate between the amodal and the grounded views of cognition seems to be stuck. Their only substantial disagreement is about the vehicle or format of concepts. Amodal theorists reject the grounded claim that concepts are couched in the same modality-specific format as representations in sensory systems. The problem is that there is no clear characterization of (modal or amodal) format or its neural correlate. In order to make the disagreement empirically meaningful and move forward in the discussion we need a neurocognitive criterion for representational format. I argue that efficient coding models in computational neuroscience can be used to characterize modal codes: These are codes which satisfy special informational demands imposed by sensory tasks. Additionally, I examine recent studies on neural coding and argue that although they do not provide conclusive evidence for either the grounded or the amodal views, they can be used to determine what predictions these approaches can make and what experimental and theoretical developments would be required to settle the debate

Domain engineering for customer experience management

Customer experience management (CXM) denotes a set of practices, processes, and tools, that aim at personalizing a customer’s interactions with a company around the customer’s needs and desires (Walker in The emergence of customer experience management solutions, 2011). The past few years have seen the emergence of a new generation of context-aware CXM applications that exploit the IoT, AI, and cloud computing to provide rich and personalized customer experiences. Such applications are usually developed in an ad-hoc fashion, typically as technology showcases, often with little validation in the field. Indeed, there is no methodology to elicit and specify the requirements for such applications, nor domain level reusable components that can be leveraged to implement such applications with the context of e-commerce solutions. An e-commerce software vendor asked us to do just that, in a domain with a fragmented scientific literature, and with no portfolio of applications to draw upon. In this paper, we describe our domain engineering strategy, present the main elements of the technical approach, and discuss the main difficulties we faced in this domain engineering effort. Our approach is intended for marketing analysts and customer experience designers. It offers to them a methodology and tools to design customer experiences and generate building blocks of CXM functionalities to be integrated in e-commerce suites of their customers—the retailers.</p

From holism to compositionality: memes and the evolution of segmentation, syntax, and signification in music and language

Steven Mithen argues that language evolved from an antecedent he terms “Hmmmmm, [meaning it was] Holistic, manipulative, multi-modal, musical and mimetic”. Owing to certain innate and learned factors, a capacity for segmentation and cross-stream mapping in early Homo sapiens broke the continuous line of Hmmmmm, creating discrete replicated units which, with the initial support of Hmmmmm, eventually became the semantically freighted words of modern language. That which remained after what was a bifurcation of Hmmmmm arguably survived as music, existing as a sound stream segmented into discrete units, although one without the explicit and relatively fixed semantic content of language. All three types of utterance – the parent Hmmmmm, language, and music – are amenable to a memetic interpretation which applies Universal Darwinism to what are understood as language and musical memes. On the basis of Peter Carruthers’ distinction between ‘cognitivism’ and ‘communicativism’ in language, and William Calvin’s theories of cortical information encoding, a framework is hypothesized for the semantic and syntactic associations between, on the one hand, the sonic patterns of language memes (‘lexemes’) and of musical memes (‘musemes’) and, on the other hand, ‘mentalese’ conceptual structures, in Chomsky’s ‘Logical Form’ (LF)

Water Scarcity, Marketing, and Privatization

Most Americans take water for granted. Turn on the tap and a limitless quantity of high quality water flows for less money than it costs for cable television or a cell phone. The current drought has raised awareness of water scarcity, but most proposals for dealing with drought involve quick fixes-short-term palliatives, such as bans on washing cars or watering lawns except on alternate days. It is assumed that things will return to normal, and we will be able to wash our cars whenever we wish. But the nation's water supply is not inexhaustible. A just-released report of a White House subcommittee ominously begins: "Does the United States have enough water? We do not know." In a survey of states conducted by the U.S. General Accounting Office, only 14 states reported that they did not expect to suffer water shortages in the next 10 years. Is the sky falling? Not yet, but the United States is heading toward a water scarcity crisis: our current water use practices are unsustainable, and environmental factors threaten a water supply heavily burdened by increased demand. As the demand for water outstrips the supply, the stage is set for what Jared Diamond would call a collapse. How will we respond? When we needed more water in the past, we built a dam, dug a canal, or drilled a well. With some exceptions, these options are no longer viable due to a paucity of sites, dwindling supplies, escalating costs, and environmental objections. Instead, we are entering an era in which demand for new water will be satisfied by reallocating and conserving existing sources. The current water rights structure is the outcome of historical forces that conferred great wealth and power along with the water. The solution to tomorrow's water shortages will require creative answers to challenging issues of equity, community, and economics