853 research outputs found
Language Design for Reactive Systems: On Modal Models, Time, and Object Orientation in Lingua Franca and SCCharts
Reactive systems play a crucial role in the embedded domain. They continuously interact with their environment, handle concurrent operations, and are commonly expected to provide deterministic behavior to enable application in safety-critical systems. In this context, language design is a key aspect, since carefully tailored language constructs can aid in addressing the challenges faced in this domain, as illustrated by the various concurrency models that prevent the known pitfalls of regular threads. Today, many languages exist in this domain and often provide unique characteristics that make them specifically fit for certain use cases. This thesis evolves around two distinctive languages: the actor-oriented polyglot coordination language Lingua Franca and the synchronous statecharts dialect SCCharts. While they take different approaches in providing reactive modeling capabilities, they share clear similarities in their semantics and complement each other in design principles. This thesis analyzes and compares key design aspects in the context of these two languages. For three particularly relevant concepts, it provides and evaluates lean and seamless language extensions that are carefully aligned with the fundamental principles of the underlying language. Specifically, Lingua Franca is extended toward coordinating modal behavior, while SCCharts receives a timed automaton notation with an efficient execution model using dynamic ticks and an extension toward the object-oriented modeling paradigm
To make the dominoes fall: A relational-processual approach to societal accountability in the Italian and Spanish anti-corruption arenas
In che modo le organizzazioni della società civile (OSC) contribuiscono alla lotta contro la corruzione? Come possono responsabilizzare i rappresentanti politici? La presente tesi si propone di rispondere a queste a queste domande di ricerca, unendo gli studi sulla lotta alla corruzione a quelli sui movimenti sociali e concentrandosi sul concetto di societal accountability, cioè sui meccanismi di controllo e di sanzione dei rappresentanti pubblici. Negli ultimi anni, gli studiosi della corruzione hanno enfatizzato sempre più il ruolo della società civile come antidoto contro la corruzione, a complemento dei meccanismi di accountability statali ed elettorali. Tuttavia, gli studi empirici sugli effetti anticorruzione degli interventi civici non hanno ancora prodotto risultati coerenti. Questo non dovrebbe sorprendere. Se misurare la corruzione è un compito arduo, valutare se e quanto gli scambi corruttivi vengano impediti grazie alle iniziative della società civile sembra virtualmente impossibile. Per questo motivo, il presente lavoro fa un passo indietro e problematizza lo studio della societal accountability, affrontandola non come un insieme predefinito di meccanismi o pratiche messe in atto da attori civici anticorruzione, ma come il risultato di interazioni sostenute e conflittuali tra più attori, civici e non. Per fare ciò, lo studio si ispira alle teorie dei movimenti sociali e concettualizza la societal accountability come un insieme di conseguenze dell’azione collettiva. Pertanto, questo lavoro mira a capire come e in quali condizioni le iniziative anticorruzione dal basso raggiungano risultati di accountability, quali il passaggio di nuove norme, il miglioramento dell’answerability istituzionale e potenziale sanzionatorio. Con questo obiettivo, la tesi si basa sulle evidenze esistenti negli studi sulla corruzione e sull'accountability e contribuisce ai dibattiti in corso sulle conseguenze dell'azione collettiva. Il quadro teorico si concentra sul concetto di influenza, aderendo a un approccio processuale-relazionale. L'influenza è intesa come un'istanza di causalità relazionale, una forma di potere posizionale che consente a più attori di esercitare un controllo sulle conseguenze dell’azione collettiva. Facendo da ponte tra l'approccio strategico-interazionale e i modelli di mediazione, l'analisi chiarisce le strategie seguite dalle OSC nella ricerca di posizioni di influenza, così come i meccanismi attraverso i quali i modelli relazionali producono cambiamento sociale. Il quadro analitico è applicato alle arene anticorruzione in Italia e in Spagna e si restringe a tre specifiche aree di intervento: l'introduzione di leggi sulla trasparenza, l'approvazione di leggi per la protezione dei whistleblower e lo sviluppo di progetti di monitoraggio civico. Il materiale empirico comprende 37 interviste qualitative semi-strutturate, documenti e dati network. Nel complesso, le evidenze raccolte contribuiscono alla letteratura sulla lotta alla corruzione, dimostrando che le OSC contribuiscono, direttamente e indirettamente, alla lotta contro la corruzione ottenendo cambiamenti nelle politiche, aumentando l’answerability del sistema e innescando sanzioni formali e informali quando necessario. Tuttavia, l’analisi comparata dei casi italiano e spagnolo evidenziano differenze rilevanti. In particolare, l'indagine empirica contribuisce agli attuali dibattiti sullo studio della società della social accountability, dimostrando che l'integrazione con le élite politiche può aumentare la probabilità di ottenere di ottenere un cambiamento delle politiche, mentre l'integrazione orizzontale tra gli attori civici può aumentare il loro potenziale sanzionatorio. In definitiva, questo lavoro dimostra come gli approcci processuali-relazionali possano integrare modelli strategici e di mediazione per comprendere meglio il modo in cui gli attori collettivi influenzano il cambiamento politico e sociale. Le osservazioni conclusive sostengono che le interazioni e le relazioni costruite dagli attori nel corso del tempo e in diverse arene fungono da canali di mediazione a livello micro, meso e macro. Complessivamente, ciò dimostra che i singoli attori, i modelli di relazione nelle e tra le arene e le idee sulle relazioni mediano tra le strategie dei attori collettivi, aumentando o limitando così la loro influenza sulla lotta alla corruzione.How do civil society organizations (CSOs) contribute to the struggle against public corruption? How can they hold their political representatives accountable? This thesis aims to answer these wide-ranging research questions, bridging anti-corruption and social movement studies by focusing on societal accountability, i.e., grassroots mechanisms for controlling and sanctioning powerholders. Over the last few years, corruption scholars have increasingly emphasized the role of civil society as an antidote against corruption, complementing state and electoral accountability mechanisms. However, empirical studies on the anti-corruption effects of civic interventions have yet to yield consistent results. This should hardly come as a surprise. If measuring corruption is a challenging task, assessing the extent to which corrupt deals are prevented due to civil society initiatives appears virtually impossible. Hence, this work takes a step back and problematizes the study of societal accountability, approaching it not as a pre-given set of mechanisms or practices deployed by anti-corruption civic actors but as the result of sustained and contentious interactions between multiple players. To do so, the study draws on social movement theories and conceptualizes societal accountability as a set of consequences of collective action efforts. Therefore, this work aims to understand how and under what conditions bottom-up anti-corruption initiatives achieve accountability results such as legal claim attainments, answerability, and sanctioning potential. With this goal in mind, the thesis builds upon existing evidence from corruption and accountability studies and contributes to ongoing debates on the consequences of collective action. The theoretical framework focuses on the concept of influence, subscribing to a processual-relational approach. It understands influence as a relationally emergent instance of causality, a form of positional power that enables multiple players to exert control over the consequences of collective struggles. By bridging the strategic-interaction approach and mediation models; the analysis elucidates the strategies followed by CSOs in seeking positions of influence, as well as the mechanisms through which relational patterns produce social change. The analytical framework is applied to the anti-corruption arenas in Italy and Spain and is narrowed down by focusing on three specific campaigns in each country: introducing transparency laws, passing whistleblowers' protection acts, and developing civic monitoring projects. The empirical material comprises 37 semi-structured qualitative interviews, documents, and network data retrieved through Action Organization Analysis. The corpus of data is analyzed by combining thematic analysis, frame analysis, and a theory-building process tracing through a qualitative network approach. Overall, the evidence collected contributes to the literature on anti-corruption, demonstrating that CSOs, directly and indirectly, contribute to the anti-corruption struggle by achieving policy change, increasing the system's answerability, and triggering formal and informal sanctions when necessary. However, the Italian and Spanish cases' comparative accounts highlight relevant differences. In particular, the empirical investigation contributes to current debates on the study of societal accountability, showing that integration with political elites may increase the likelihood of obtaining policy change, whereas horizontal integration among civic actors may enhance their sanctioning potential. Ultimately, this work shows how processual-relational approaches can help integrate strategic and mediation models to understand better how change-oriented collective actors influence political and social change. The concluding remarks maintain that the interactions and relations built by players over time and across different arenas serve as mediation channels at the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels. Overall, this demonstrates that individual players, patterns of relations in and across arenas, and ideas about relationships mediate between players' strategies, resources, or frames and their contextual conditions, thereby increasing or constraining their influence over the anti-corruption struggl
Accents and folk linguistics: A grounded-theoretical analysis of Icelanders' reactions to foreigners' use of Icelandic
Iceland has long been a monolingual and monoethnic society, with the Icelandic language serving as a key element in the construction and maintenance of national identity. As numbers and percentages of first-generation, L2 speakers have risen substantially in the past three decades, foreign-accented Icelandic has only recently become perceivable throughout society. However, mechanisms underlying evaluations of L2 Icelandic are not yet known. Against this background, this dissertation seeks to investigate folk ideas about the status of Icelandic in general and L2 accents in Icelandic in particular. Such ideas are considered in light of the longstanding ideological positions on L1 Icelandic, including a stable evaluation system.
Drawing on concepts and methods established by research in folk linguistics, this qualitative study involved five focus group discussions with thirty-two participants, employing a semi-structured discussion guide. L1-speaker participants discussed general ideas on the Icelandic language and language variation. They were then presented with a voice-placing task using six verbal guises that had been recorded by five L2 speakers of Icelandic and one L1 speaker, each of whom read aloud the same grammatically and stylistically sound text. Subsequently, participants elaborated on their voice-placing strategies as well as different themes connected with ideas on Icelandic, including L2 and foreign-accented speech.
The results of this investigation show that mechanisms underlying evaluations of the use of L1 Icelandic are well in place, with participants resorting to deep-rooted categories when referring to assessments of good and bad language. In contrast, an evaluation system for L2 Icelandic has not yet been fully formed. Nevertheless, outcomes of this study indicate that language use of L2 speakers is less harshly judged than that of L1 speakers. In addition, results suggest that perceptions of listener effort, speaker effort, and ideas about geographic/linguistic origin of a speaker influence assessment of foreign-accented speech.Oft er litið svo á að sérstakt „málloftslag“ ríki á Íslandi sem einkennist að einsleitni í máli,
tiltölulega íhaldssömum viðhorfum til þess og sterkri málstefnu. Ísland var lengi eintyngt
samfélag og íslenskan er oft talin vera helsta sameiningartákn Íslendinga. Á undanförnum árum hefur innflytjendum fjölgað mikið og tala sífellt fleiri íbúar hér á landi annað mál en íslensku eða íslensku með erlendum hreim. Í ljósi þess hefur þessi ritgerð það að markmiði að kanna viðhorf innfæddra Íslendinga til stöðu íslensku og erlends hreims og skoða þá þætti sem liggja á bak við þau viðhorf. Tekið er tillit til þeirra rótgrónu hugmynda sem hafa legið til grundvallar mati á máli þeirra sem hafa íslensku að móðurmáli og hafa myndað stöðugt matskerfi. Rannsókn þessi er framkvæmd með eigindlegum aðferðum og nýtir sér hugtök og aðferðir alþýðumálfræði (e. folk linguistics). Skipulögð voru fimm rýnihópaviðtöl með þrjátíu og tveimur þátttakendum þar sem stuðst var við hálfstaðlaðan spurningalista. Auk almennrar umræðu um afstöðu til íslensku og breytileika í íslensku voru sex upptökur spilaðar fyrir þátttakendurna og þeir beðnir um að meta þær. Í upptökunum voru fimm einstaklingar með íslensku sem annað mál og einn móðurmálshafi fengnir til að lesa upp sama textann, sem var stuttur og málfræðilega tækur. Auk viðtalanna var heimskort lagt fyrir þátttakendurna og þeir látnir merkja það svæði sem þeir héldu að viðkomandi væri frá. Þátttakendurnir gerðu svo ítarlega grein fyrir ákvörðunum sínum og ræddu mismunandi þemu tengd hugmyndum um íslensku, innfædda og talaða með hreim. Niðurstöður rannsóknarinnar hafa leitt í ljós að kerfið sem liggur til grundvallar mati á íslensku innfæddra byggist á því að þátttakendur grípa til rótgróinna hugmynda um gott og miður gott mál. Á hinn bóginn benda niðurstöður þessarar rannsóknar til þess að ekki hafi (enn) mótast matskerfi fyrir íslensku sem annað mál, þ.m.t. íslensku með erlendum hreim. Engu að síður gefa niðurstöðurnar til kynna að málnotkun innfæddra Íslendinga sé metin harkalegar en íslenska þeirra sem hafa hana sem annað mál. Þar að auki benda niðurstöðurnar til að skynjun tiltekinna þátta á borð við skynjaðan skiljanleika (e. listener effort), viðleitni talandans og hugmyndir um uppruna talandans hafi áhrif á mat á erlendum hreim.This study was supported by the Icelandic Research Fund, grant no. 152145-051, The University of Iceland Research Fund and Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes
Data ethics : building trust : how digital technologies can serve humanity
Data is the magic word of the 21st century. As oil in the 20th century and electricity in the 19th century:
For citizens, data means support in daily life in almost all activities, from watch to laptop, from kitchen to car,
from mobile phone to politics. For business and politics, data means power, dominance, winning the race. Data can be used for good and bad,
for services and hacking, for medicine and arms race. How can we build trust in this complex and ambiguous data world?
How can digital technologies serve humanity? The 45 articles in this book represent a broad range of ethical reflections and recommendations
in eight sections: a) Values, Trust and Law, b) AI, Robots and Humans, c) Health and Neuroscience, d) Religions for Digital Justice, e) Farming, Business, Finance, f) Security, War, Peace, g) Data Governance, Geopolitics, h) Media, Education, Communication.
The authors and institutions come from all continents.
The book serves as reading material for teachers, students, policy makers, politicians, business, hospitals, NGOs and religious organisations alike. It is an invitation for dialogue, debate and building trust!
The book is a continuation of the volume “Cyber Ethics 4.0” published in 2018 by the same editors
Recommended from our members
Sonic heritage: listening to the past
History is so often told through objects, images and photographs, but the potential of sounds to reveal place and space is often neglected. Our research project ‘Sonic Palimpsest’1 explores the potential of sound to evoke impressions and new understandings of the past, to embrace the sonic as a tool to understand what was, in a way that can complement and add to our predominant visual understandings. Our work includes the expansion of the Oral History archives held at Chatham Dockyard to include women’s voices and experiences, and the creation of sonic works to engage the public with their heritage. Our research highlights the social and cultural value of oral history and field recordings in the transmission of knowledge to both researchers and the public. Together these recordings document how buildings and spaces within the dockyard were used and experienced by those who worked there. We can begin to understand the social and cultural roles of these buildings within the community, both past and present
Global value chains: Potential synergies between external trade policy and internal economic initiatives to address the strategic dependencies of the EU
Global value chains enable two-thirds of international trade, notably for the EU. The EU
wants to preserve its commercial links with third countries and organisations to make
up for trade disruptions. This study examines sustainable supply of raw materials,
commodities, and critical goods using the EU's Open Strategic Autonomy concept. It
examines which raw material are crucial for sustainable supply and necessary for the
green transition. The paper examines EU internal legislation and international
cooperation instruments to determine the EU's disruption risk. It evaluates the
economic impact of EU preferential trade agreements on raw material availability. The
study illustrates the political and economic relevance of raw material partnerships and
plurilateral and bilateral trade agreements. It analyses the EU's toolbox for
safeguarding its interests and making independent trade choices to counteract other
actors' unfair practices and intervention. Finally, the paper examines regulatory
frameworks, international alliances, and activities to find ways to strengthen global
value chains in critical EU industries
Machine Learning Algorithm for the Scansion of Old Saxon Poetry
Several scholars designed tools to perform the automatic scansion of poetry in many languages, but none of these tools
deal with Old Saxon or Old English. This project aims to be a first attempt to create a tool for these languages. We
implemented a Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (BiLSTM) model to perform the automatic scansion of Old Saxon
and Old English poems. Since this model uses supervised learning, we manually annotated the Heliand manuscript, and
we used the resulting corpus as labeled dataset to train the model. The evaluation of the performance of the algorithm
reached a 97% for the accuracy and a 99% of weighted average for precision, recall and F1 Score. In addition, we tested
the model with some verses from the Old Saxon Genesis and some from The Battle of Brunanburh, and we observed that
the model predicted almost all Old Saxon metrical patterns correctly misclassified the majority of the Old English input
verses
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