Multilingual Fine-Grained Named Entity Recognition

The “MultiCoNER II Multilingual Complex Named Entity Recognition” task\footnote[1]{\url{https://multiconer.github.io}} within SemEval 2023 competition focuses on identifying complex named entities (NEs), such as the titles of creative works (e.g., songs, books, movies), people with different titles (e.g., politicians, scientists, artists, athletes), different categories of products (e.g., food, drinks, clothing), and so on, in several languages. In the context of SemEval, our team, \textit{FII\_Better}, presented an exploration of a base transformer model’s capabilities regarding the task, focused more specifically on five languages (English, Spanish, Swedish, German, and Italian). We took DistilBERT (a distilled version of BERT) and BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) as two examples of basic transformer models, using DistilBERT as a baseline and BERT as the platform to create an improved model. In this process, we managed to get fair results in the chosen languages. We have managed to get moderate results in the English track (we ranked 17th out of 34), while our results in the other tracks could be further improved in the future (overall third to last)

Weathering the Nest: Privacy Implications of Home Monitoring for the Aging American Population

The research in this paper will seek to ascertain the extent of personal data entry and collection required to enjoy at least the minimal promised benefits of distributed intelligence and monitoring in the home. Particular attention will be given to the abilities and sensitivities of the population most likely to need these devices, notably the elderly and disabled. The paper will then evaluate whether existing legal limitations on the collection, maintenance, and use of such data are applicable to devices currently in use in the home environment and whether such regulations effectively protect privacy. Finally, given appropriate policy parameters, the paper will offer proposals to effectuate reasonable and practical privacy-protective solutions for developers and consumers

BodyCloud: a SaaS approach for community body sensor networks

Body Sensor Networks (BSNs) have been recently introduced for the remote monitoring of human activities in a broad range of application domains, such as health care, emergency management, fitness and behaviour surveillance. BSNs can be deployed in a community of people and can generate large amounts of contextual data that require a scalable approach for storage, processing and analysis. Cloud computing can provide a flexible storage and processing infrastructure to perform both online and offline analysis of data streams generated in BSNs. This paper proposes BodyCloud, a SaaS approach for community BSNs that supports the development and deployment of Cloud-assisted BSN applications. BodyCloud is a multi-tier application-level architecture that integrates a Cloud computing platform and BSN data streams middleware. BodyCloud provides programming abstractions that allow the rapid development of community BSN applications. This work describes the general architecture of the proposed approach and presents a case study for the real-time monitoring and analysis of cardiac data streams of many individuals

Out of the Shadows: Recommendations to Advance Transparency in the Use of Lethal Force

The U.S. government’s secretive and expanding use of “targeted killings” and drone strikes since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 is highly controversial. For many years, such killings were carried out as part of counter-terrorism operations and in near-complete secrecy by the Cen- tral Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), including in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, far from any traditional and recognized battlefield. The government did not meaningfully explain their legal basis. The U.S. government has admitted that it killed between 2,867–3,138 people between 2009–2016, in an estimated 526 strikes in areas the government deemed outside of “active hostilities.” Our research reveals that the government has acknowledged approximately 153 strikes, about 20 per cent of the more than 700 reported strikes since 2002. For strikes between 2009 and 2016, independent organizations have recorded an esti- mated minimum of almost 400 civilian casualties in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, while the govern- ment claims that the number is less than 120. This report finds that the United States has been consistently and excessively secret, although it took some positive steps forward starting in 2010, and made particularly important transparency advances in 2016. These transparency reforms should continue to be strengthened and further built upon. The report identifies recommendations the U.S. and other governments should take to advance transparency, account for past harms, meet their human rights obligations, and set a rights-promoting precedent

A Knowledge-based Integrative Modeling Approach for <em>In-Silico</em> Identification of Mechanistic Targets in Neurodegeneration with Focus on Alzheimer’s Disease

Dementia is the progressive decline in cognitive function due to damage or disease in the body beyond what might be expected from normal aging. Based on neuropathological and clinical criteria, dementia includes a spectrum of diseases, namely Alzheimer's dementia, Parkinson's dementia, Lewy Body disease, Alzheimer's dementia with Parkinson's, Pick's disease, Semantic dementia, and large and small vessel disease. It is thought that these disorders result from a combination of genetic and environmental risk factors. Despite accumulating knowledge that has been gained about pathophysiological and clinical characteristics of the disease, no coherent and integrative picture of molecular mechanisms underlying neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease is available. Existing drugs only offer symptomatic relief to the patients and lack any efficient disease-modifying effects. The present research proposes a knowledge-based rationale towards integrative modeling of disease mechanism for identifying potential candidate targets and biomarkers in Alzheimer’s disease. Integrative disease modeling is an emerging knowledge-based paradigm in translational research that exploits the power of computational methods to collect, store, integrate, model and interpret accumulated disease information across different biological scales from molecules to phenotypes. It prepares the ground for transitioning from ‘descriptive’ to “mechanistic” representation of disease processes. The proposed approach was used to introduce an integrative framework, which integrates, on one hand, extracted knowledge from the literature using semantically supported text-mining technologies and, on the other hand, primary experimental data such as gene/protein expression or imaging readouts. The aim of such a hybrid integrative modeling approach was not only to provide a consolidated systems view on the disease mechanism as a whole but also to increase specificity and sensitivity of the mechanistic model by providing disease-specific context. This approach was successfully used for correlating clinical manifestations of the disease to their corresponding molecular events and led to the identification and modeling of three important mechanistic components underlying Alzheimer’s dementia, namely the CNS, the immune system and the endocrine components. These models were validated using a novel in-silico validation method, namely biomarker-guided pathway analysis and a pathway-based target identification approach was introduced, which resulted in the identification of the MAPK signaling pathway as a potential candidate target at the crossroad of the triad components underlying disease mechanism in Alzheimer’s dementia

From creator to data: the post-record music industry and the digital conglomerates

This article contributes to research on the changing music industries by identifying three dynamics that underpin the shift towards a post-record music industry. First, it examines how musicians have found themselves redefined as content providers rather than creative producers; a historical change from recorded music as product to content. Second, it focuses on tensions between YouTube and recording artists as symptomatic of disputes about the changing artistic and economic value of recorded music. Third, it extends this debate about the market and moral worth of music by exploring how digital recordings have acquired value as data, rather than as a commercial form of artistic expression. The article explores how digital conglomerates have become significant in shaping the circulation of recordings and profiting from the work of musicians, and highlights dynamics, structures and patterns of conflict shaping the recording sector specifically, and music industries more generally

Tracking and Targeting:Sociotechnologies of (In)security

This introduction to the special issue of the same title sets out the context for a critical examination of contemporary developments in sociotechnical systems deployed in the name of security. Our focus is on technologies of tracking, with their claims to enable the identification of those who comprise legitimate targets for the use of violent force. Taking these claims as deeply problematic, we join a growing body of scholarship on the technopolitical logics that underpin an increasingly violent landscape of institutions, infrastructures, and actions, promising protection to some but arguably contributing to our collective insecurity. We examine the asymmetric distributions of sociotechnologies of (in)security; their deadly and injurious effects; and the legal, ethical, and moral questions that haunt their operations

The Distance Between Principle and Practice in the Obama Administration\u27s Targeted Killing Program: A Response to Jeh Johnson

On December 17, 2009, a U.S. cruise missile struck a village in southern Yemen, killing forty-one members of two families-half of whom were children, ages one to fifteen. The target was an alleged al Qaeda-affiliated training camp in the same region, but according to the Yemeni parliamentary committee that investigated the strike, there were errors in the geographic coordinates and the determination of the location. The United States initially refused to comment, while Yemeni authorities claimed that it had been their own fighter jets that had killed dozens of militants in simultaneous operations. Nearly a year after the strike, however, the media reported government cables obtained by Wikileaks that made the United States\u27 role clear: during a conversation between former CIA Director David Petraeus and then-Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Yemeni leader assured Petraeus that the Yemenis would continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours