Virtual Borders: Accurate Definition of a Mobile Robot's Workspace Using Augmented Reality

We address the problem of interactively controlling the workspace of a mobile robot to ensure a human-aware navigation. This is especially of relevance for non-expert users living in human-robot shared spaces, e.g. home environments, since they want to keep the control of their mobile robots, such as vacuum cleaning or companion robots. Therefore, we introduce virtual borders that are respected by a robot while performing its tasks. For this purpose, we employ a RGB-D Google Tango tablet as human-robot interface in combination with an augmented reality application to flexibly define virtual borders. We evaluated our system with 15 non-expert users concerning accuracy, teaching time and correctness and compared the results with other baseline methods based on visual markers and a laser pointer. The experimental results show that our method features an equally high accuracy while reducing the teaching time significantly compared to the baseline methods. This holds for different border lengths, shapes and variations in the teaching process. Finally, we demonstrated the correctness of the approach, i.e. the mobile robot changes its navigational behavior according to the user-defined virtual borders.Comment: Accepted on 2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), supplementary video: https://youtu.be/oQO8sQ0JBR

The European Commission's public consultation on the review of EU copyright rules: a response by the CREATe Centre

No abstract available

The Impact of Information Security Technologies Upon Society

This paper's aims are concerned with the effects of information security technologies upon society in general and civil society organisations in particular. Information security mechanisms have the potential to act as enablers or disablers for the work of civil society groups. Recent increased emphasis on national security issues by state actors, particularly 'anti-terrorism' initiatives, have resulted in legislative instruments that impinge upon the civil liberties of many citizens and have the potential to restrict the free flow of information vital for civil society actors. The nascent area of cyberactivism, or hactivism, is at risk of being labelled cyberterrorism, with the accompanying change of perception from a legitimate form of electronic civil disobedience to an abhorrent crime. Biometric technology can be an invasive intrusion into citizens' privacy. Internet censorship and surveillance is widespread and increasing. These implementations of information security technology are becoming more widely deployed with profound implications for the type of societies that will result

Morality Without Borders: A Vision of Humanity as Community

Identity politics is on the rise, and not only in America, but throughout the world. It is an inherent nationalism, and when unbridled and unchecked, unleashes an exclusive ethic into society appealing, not to an expansive moral ought, but one that is narrow and provincial, condemning and vilifying. The fact of national diversity and the imprint of dissimilar value orientations often cause fear and insecurity among groups and sub-groups who are apt to condense their value-orientation vis-à-vis their national or cultural identity, promoting ethical relativism and neglecting core human values. With a diminishing of religion’s consecrated and sanctified moral vision, many are falling upon an idealized version of national identity to set the parameters of their moral horizon. This is often expressed as a “moral superiority” implying the dominance of certain traditions and customs over those of others. We must be reminded that autocracy, national or religious, can be a tool of anyone seeking moral supremacy. Looking back, history teaches that putting up constrictive, dogmatic borders is morally destructive, fencing out those with different views and stifling dialogue and civility within and without. Obviously, putting up ideological boundaries is apt to enclose those who profess a restrictive and/or superior ethic to unproductive and morality corrosive values. Being ethnocentric and tribal seems natural as there is a desire to protect our most cherished beliefs claiming moral superiority. Values are what define us; they are the substance of whom we are and reveal our commitments and convictions and their assumed authority. But our values can also limit our moral acuity, narrowing moral focus and diminishing its energy, unseeking of the commonalities that bind humanity to humanity. Clearly, it’s time to change this truncated narrative from an exclusive ethic to a morality without borders, exemplified as humanity as community. Authoritarianism, displaying autocratic and anti-egalitarian values, is repressive and results in a limited and often amoral view of others. This we are witnessing today from all corners of the political spectrum, and not only in America, but elsewhere as well. For advancing a vision of the morally possible, an inclusive and expansive moral “ought” is needed, but terribly difficult to achieve or even articulate given the fact of cultural diversity, but we try. As Thomas Donaldson (1996, p.52) has noted, “We all learn ethics in the context of our particular cultures, and the power in the principles is deeply tied to the way in which they are expressed. Internationally accepted lists of moral principles, such as the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, draw on many cultural and religious traditions. As philosopher Michael Walzer (1983) has noted, ‘There is no 2 Esperanto (an artificial language devised in 1887 as an international medium of communication, based on roots from the chief European languages) of global ethics.’” We simply express our view of a global ethic as a “moral human ecology” supportive of an unrestrained moral vision drawing both humanity and the environment into its definitive natural fiber. How often we write in abstractions and generalities forgetting the people about whom we talk. Their needs and the inhumanity heaped upon them are seldom noticed. There is some distance between us and others, but with empathy and care and an unrestrictive vision of others, this fissure can be closed. Differing customs and traditions require our reconsideration and respect. What we expose is an ethic of diversity-seeking those basic and common values grounded in the idea of “humanity” itself. Given the present-day discombobulation of value, especially moral value, as witnessed in present-day politics, nuclear proliferation, human exploitation and misery in Central America, and continuous war in both Africa and the Middle East, “morality without borders” presents a guiding metaphor beckoning our attention. “Humanity as Community” marks its location for it is a global imperative. Its possibilities are endless as it can become a beacon of hope in a divided world. But don’t expect miracles; this will be a slow and evolutionary process as we naturally hold our values close, seldom unleashing them for public scrutiny. Philosophically, more than words are needed and more than well-crafted arguments are required for human rights, understood as moral rights, to be judiciously spread around the world. Commitment, respect, planning, and action are also required. For those who are leaders in human rights proliferation as well as ordinary people whose voices need to be heard, this is an enabling vision. It acknowledges the essence of humanity as moral and does not contradict what the religiously oriented call the “sacredness of human life.” It also acknowledges the principles foundational to human rights, such as fairness and justice, decency and responsibility, and the importance of human dignity, integrity, nurture, and care. Not mere generalities, these values are drawn from personal and collective experience and an unhampered propensity to care for others. To say they are innate (Haidt, 2012, p. 31) is perhaps an overreach, but to recognize their human importance is not. As ethicist Kurt Baier pointed out in 1971 (p. 810), morality looks at the world from the point of view of everyone, that “…to be moral…is to recognize that others too, have a right to a worthwhile life.

The Futility of Walls: How Traveling Corporations Threaten State Sovereignty

Inversions--mergers in which one firm merges with another abroad to avoid taxes in its home country--have spread as globalization has reduced many of the transactional costs associated with relocating. As firms acquire the power to choose the laws that govern them, they challenge the sovereignty of nation-states, who find their ability to tax and regulate firms depleted. States and firms compete in a game of cat and mouse to adapt to this new global reality. The subversion of state power by these firms reveals the futility of walls, both literal and regulatory. This Essay describes the phenomenon of these “traveling corporations” and analyzes several remedies that could limit future mergers. We conclude by arguing that inversions provoke deglobalization and yet may continue to flourish despite it as firms take the lead in dictating global norms

Constructive Feedback Course

This short online course aims to help the students develop an understanding of what constructive feedback is and offers them an opportunity to practise giving such feedback in the context of texts related to science, engineering and technology. The course is conceived as a preparation course for the EAST Project during which engineering students from Gaza were asked to act as critical friends offering content-oriented feedback to pre-sessional students at the University of Glasgow. We believe the course can be offered on its own, either in isolation or as part of a wider mentoring scheme for students who want to develop skills in ‘leadership by example’[2]. The course can easily be adapted for any discipline - this would require changing the samples in tasks 5 and 6. The course is intended to be delivered over two weeks and it is run online and asynchronously. In terms of design, it follows the framework of exploration - integration - application (Garrison and Arbaugh, 2007), with each stage being progressively more complex, challenging and open-ended. The students work in groups and the teacher monitors interactions and motivates them to stay on task and track in regard with deadlines via a closed Facebook group. The final task requires submitting an assessed assignment which the tutor gives feedback on. After that there is an extra week for reflection and evaluation. Timings for each activity are approximate and may need to be adjusted depending on the general progress of the course. See the course overview for details. The main technology used is Google Docs and it is recommended that the students have gmail accounts. Although students without gmail accounts are still able to access and edit the materials, tracking their contributions will not be possible. When setting up the documents, attention has to be paid to shareability settings so that there is no barrier to access. Padlet is used for sharing personal experiences and reflections at the beginning and end of the course respectively. A closed Facebook group is used as a news and discussions forum and for collective feedback. A public blog may be used for documenting the process. All the documents are created by the teacher; he or she creates an empty template for each group[3] and pastes the subsequent tasks into them on the task start date. This increases the teacher’s workload but helps them monitor their students’ progress and has a motivational effect on the students. An alternative approach would to be to ask the students to copy the template, and the task instructions could be provided in other ways, for example via Facebook, in order to decrease the workload. The course can be enriched by synchronous sessions during which the teacher can provide collective feedback and the students have an opportunity to ask questions and express their concerns. Adding a video element, for example to introduce the whole course, individual tasks or to give feedback, may constitute an added value too

Syrian Refugees and the Digital Passage to Europe: Smartphone Infrastructures and Affordances

This research examines the role of smartphones in refugees’ journeys. It traces the risks and possibilities afforded by smartphones for facilitating information, communication, and migration flows in the digital passage to Europe. For the Syrian and Iraqi refugee respondents in this France-based qualitative study, smartphones are lifelines, as important as water and food. They afford the planning, navigation, and documentation of journeys, enabling regular contact with family, friends, smugglers, and those who help them. However, refugees are simultaneously exposed to new forms of exploitation and surveillance with smartphones as migrations are financialised by smugglers and criminalized by European policies, and the digital passage is dependent on a contingent range of sociotechnical and material assemblages. Through an infrastructural lens, we capture the dialectical dynamics of opportunity and vulnerability, and the forms of resilience and solidarity, that arise as forced migration and digital connectivity coincide

Representing Childhood and Forced Migration: Narratives of Borders and Belonging in European Screen Content for Children

This article explores representations of childhood and forced migration within a selection of European screen content for and about children. Based on the findings of a research project that examined the intersections of children’s media, diversity, and forced migration in Europe (www.euroarabchildrensmedia.org), funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council, the article highlights different ways in which ideas of borders and belonging are constructed and deconstructed in a selection of films and television programmes that feature children with an immigration background. Drawing on ideas around the “politics of pity” (Arendt), the analysis explores conditions under which narratives of otherness arise when it comes to representing forcibly displaced children within European-produced children’s screen media. It also examines screen media that destabilize borders of “us” and “the other” by emphasizing the agency of children from migration backgrounds, and revealing both the similarities and the differences between European children with immigration backgrounds and White European-born children. It is argued here that, operating according to the notions of living “together-in-difference” (Ang), “narratability” (Chouliaraki and Stolic), and “the struggle for belonging” (Kebede), these representations destabilize narratives of borders and otherness, suggesting that children with a family history of immigration “belong” to European societies in the same ways as White European-born children