Robust Computer Vision Against Adversarial Examples and Domain Shifts

Recent advances in deep learning have achieved remarkable success in various computer vision problems. Driven by progressive computing resources and a vast amount of data, deep learning technology is reshaping human life. However, Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) have been shown vulnerable to adversarial examples, in which carefully crafted perturbations can easily fool DNNs into making wrong predictions. On the other hand, DNNs have poor generalization to domain shifts, as they suffer from performance degradation when encountering data from new visual distributions. We view these issues from the perspective of robustness. More precisely, existing deep learning technology is not reliable enough for many scenarios, where adversarial examples and domain shifts are among the most critical. The lack of reliability inevitably limits DNNs from being deployed in more important computer vision applications, such as self-driving vehicles and medical instruments that have major safety concerns. To overcome these challenges, we focus on investigating and addressing the robustness of deep learning-based computer vision approaches. The first part of this thesis attempts to robustify computer vision models against adversarial examples. We dive into such adversarial robustness from four aspects: novel attacks for strengthening benchmarks, empirical defenses validated by a third-party evaluator, generalizable defenses that can defend against multiple and unforeseen attacks, and defenses specifically designed for less explored tasks. The second part of this thesis improves the robustness against domain shifts via domain adaptation. We dive into two important domain adaptation settings: unsupervised domain adaptation, which is the most common, and source-free domain adaptation, which is more practical in real-world scenarios. The last part explores the intersection of adversarial robustness and domain adaptation fields to provide new insights for robust DNNs. We study two directions: adversarial defense for domain adaptation and adversarial defense via domain adaptations. This dissertation aims at more robust, reliable, and trustworthy computer vision

Beyond Quantity: Research with Subsymbolic AI

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

Tech Imaginations

Prof. Dr. Jens Schröter, Christoph Borbach, Max Kanderske und Prof. Dr. Benjamin Beil sind Herausgeber der Reihe. Die Herausgeber*innen der einzelnen Hefte sind renommierte Wissenschaftler*innen aus dem In- und Ausland.Technologies and especially media technologies are pervasive in modern societies. But even more omnipresent are the imaginaries of modern technologies – what technologies are thought to be capable of or what effects they are supposed to have. These imaginations reveal a lot of the political and ideological self-descriptions of societies, hence the (techno-)imaginary also functions as a kind of epistemic tool. Concepts of the imaginary therefore have experienced an increasing attention in cultural theory and the social sciences in recent years. In particular, work from political philosophy, but also approaches from science and technology studies (STS) or communication and media studies are worth mentioning here. The term "techno-imagination", coined by Vilém Flusser in the early 1990s, refers to the close interconnection of (digital) media and imaginations, whose coupling can not only be understood as a driver of future technology via fictional discourses (e.g. science fiction), but much more fundamentally also as a constitutive element of society and sociality itself, as Castoriadis has argued. In the first part of the issue several theoretical contributions add new aspects to the discussion of socio-technical imaginaries, while in the second part a workshop held in January 2022 at the CAIS in Bochum is documented, in which the case of the imaginaries of “Future Internets” was discussed

The Trouble With Big Data

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Trinity College Dublin, DARIAH-EU and the European Commission. This book explores the challenges society faces with big data, through the lens of culture rather than social, political or economic trends, as demonstrated in the words we use, the values that underpin our interactions, and the biases and assumptions that drive us. Focusing on areas such as data and language, data and sensemaking, data and power, data and invisibility, and big data aggregation, it demonstrates that humanities research, focussing on cultural rather than social, political or economic frames of reference for viewing technology, resists mass datafication for a reason, and that those very reasons can be instructive for the critical observation of big data research and innovation

Militarised post-conflict statebuilding: explaining South Sudan’s war-to-war transition

South Sudan’s recent war-to-war transition, and its post-conflict statebuilding experience prior to renewed mass violence beginning in December 2013, has upended conventional wisdom on post-conflict peacemaking. Analysts have been left scrambling to explain the apparent implosion of South Sudan’s political and military system, often reverting to problematic or discredited analytical frameworks – including ‘ethnic conflict’, ‘failed states’ or variants of the ‘greed not grievance’ argument – to interpret the violence, or else have emphasised the chaotic and disorderly nature of conflict and governance in South Sudan. This thesis argues that in order to make sense of South Sudan’s tragic and unshakeable relationship to political violence, an explanation grounded in the concepts of militarism and militarisation, and the framework of militarised statebuilding, is required. The post-conflict statebuilding process in South Sudan has further militarised social relationships whilst considerably expanding the state, creating an enabling environment for war to occur either on the margins of the political system established in the course of statebuilding, or from within it. Simultaneously, it has compelled those making political and economic claims on the state to do so through engaging with this militarised state infrastructure, or else through organising violence to gain entry into the state. However, this militarised statebuilding project entered a state of crisis since independence in 2011, culminating in the mass violence of December 2013, when the same forces which had propelled the expansion of the state would propel its sudden and violent contraction. This militarised statebuilding process has provided much for some sections of South Sudanese society (and especially its elites), but has also left the country particularly vulnerable to large-scale violence among its vastly expanded and heavily armed military. This framework of militarised statebuilding has the potential to speak to enduring militarism and violence in cases of post-conflict statebuilding beyond South Sudan, and advances debate on the relationship between statebuilding and violence in contemporary international politics

“You have to do everything in your power so that this does not happen to anyone else”. Contention dynamics against the Mexican war on drugs and crime: a case study of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity

In 2006, then Mexican President Felipe Calderón declared a ‘war’ against criminal organisations that were beginning to control some of the country’s territories. Consequently, the number of murders and disappearances of people began to increase steadily by tens of thousands. Far from acknowledging the errors of the strategy, the authorities constantly criminalised the victims and denied the tragic consequences of the use of the military against drug cartels. After the murder of his son on 28 March 2011, the poet Javier Sicilia started leading mobilisations in the state of Morelos to protest the violence. In just a few days, the actions expanded to virtually all regions of the country embracing relatives of victims, activists and organisations of very different backgrounds, forming the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD). This thesis comprises an in-depth case study of the MPJD. After providing an overview of the context in which the mobilisations started and my research methods, I develop thematic chapters. In the first one, I analyse the recruitment dynamics of the MPJD. These pages contribute to the literature by advancing the understanding of how people without prior political experience or links to a mobilised group join and participate in protest. This, moreover, helps in refining rather than reifying the function of social networks. The second chapter explains the upward scale-shift process of mobilisation and the response given by the government through the analysis of coalition building, framing and counter-framing. The results of the analysis help to specify the conditions that facilitate not only the development of alliances, but also those that lead to their accelerated breakdown. Regarding framing, the work contributes to understanding which attributes facilitate resonance and alignment amongst audiences with contrasting characteristics. Furthermore, the discussion around counter-framing highlights how official responses influence the discursive processes of contentious actors, whose opportunities are not the same in ‘the streets’ and in official spaces. Next, the third chapter examines the type of social ties formed through the involvement in the contentious performances led by the relatives of victims of extreme violence. Bringing together the literature on social movements and a body of Latin American research on “emotional communities”, I argue that the MPJD fostered a political-emotional community in which the public narration of suffering made victims and non-victims coalesce to demand justice collectively. Overall, this chapter advances our understanding of the dynamics through which allies that are not directly aggrieved by extreme violence develop a sense of community with the victims. Likewise, it develops four empirical dimensions for the analysis of political-emotional communities: the role of testimonios (testimonial narratives), the ethics developed during contention, the fluctuations in participation, and the costs and risks involved in the mobilisations. The last two chapters focus on the outcomes of the MPJD. The fourth one encompasses the political and cultural outcomes contributing to the literature in two ways: First, by discussing how achievements in the policy process can demobilise some groups but mobilise others; and second, by explaining how the spillover of a contentious actor can consolidate a social movement community in an emergent contentious field. Finally, the fifth chapter analyses the biographical consequences of participation in victim-led mobilisations. These pages provide an account of how the lives of the participants have been influenced due to their involvement in contention. This chapter advances the understanding of the interplay between social relations and cognitions that lead participants to modify their worldviews. In an academic sense, this thesis introduces a series of thematic chapters that provide empirical evidence to refine several areas of the theory to better understand various processes related to social mobilisation. Regarding the importance that this thesis can have for the activists and the families of the victims, my work is, first, a systematisation of their campaigns and experiences; second, an acknowledgement of the transcendence of the actions that they have been carrying out sustainedly during a decade; and third, this research is a space for memory, so that their names and those of their relatives are not forgotten, so that the demand for justice does not end

Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses

Compiles peer-reviewed research and literature reviews on issues regarding patient safety and quality of care, ranging from evidence-based practice, patient-centered care, and nurses' working conditions to critical opportunities and tools for improvement