Consequentialism & Machine Ethics: Towards a Foundational Machine Ethic to Ensure the Right Action of Artificial Moral Agents

In this paper, I argue that Consequentialism represents a kind of ethical theory that is the most plausible to serve as a basis for a machine ethic. First, I outline the concept of an artificial moral agent and the essential properties of Consequentialism. Then, I present a scenario involving autonomous vehicles to illustrate how the features of Consequentialism inform agent action. Thirdly, an alternative Deontological approach will be evaluated and the problem of moral conflict discussed. Finally, two bottom-up approaches to the development of machine ethics are presented and briefly challenged

The Argument from Back-Street Abortion Revisited

Motivated by recent political trends surrounding the legality of abortion, and noting the apparent difficulty with which partisan agreement can be found when engaging with arguments from foetal personhood, this paper revisits a classic axiological argument for the legalisation of abortion which relies on a commitment to the moral relevancy of consequences and the empirically sound nature of said consequences. Academically known as the Argument from Back-Street Abortion, agreement with the argument's premises entails the legalisation of abortion is morally obligatory, and agreement to said argument's premises are possible regardless of one's position regarding a foetus' right-to-life. As such, this oft-overlooked argument deserves revisiting due to its potential for bipartisan reconciliation in service of the establishment of ethical abortion policy

The Network Metaphor & the New Renaissance

This article is about art and science and a certain parallelism between them in the evolution of Western culture, particularly over the last 150 years. I will try to describe what changes have taken place in our society’s operational schema and our shared paradigm. My construct will be one of art, though a strong influence from science will be evident. I propose that we have been living through a second renaissance provoked by a profound change in the definition and representation of reality by both art and science. Throughout the 20th century, the ideas put forth by both have been extremely unconventional and the two have interacted in ways not always obvious, providing new metaphors, new patterns for defining the future shape of our culture

Integration of SDN frameworks and Cloud Computing platforms: an Open Source approach

As a result of the explosion in the number of services offered over the Internet, network traffic has experienced a remarkable increment and is supposed to increase even more in the few next years. Therefore, Telco operators are investigating new solutions aiming at managing this traffic efficiently and transparently to guarantee the users the needed Quality of Service. The most viable solution is to have a paradigm shift in the networking field: the old and legacy routing will be indeed replaced by something more dynamic, through the use of Software Defined Networking. In addition to it, Network Functions Virtualization will play a key role making possible to virtualize the intermediate nodes implementing network functions, also called middle-boxes, on general purpose hardware. The most suitable environment to understand their potentiality is the Cloud, where resources, as computational power, storage, development platforms, etc. are outsourced and provided to the user as a service on a pay-per-use model. All of this is done in a complete dynamic way, as a result of the presence of the implementation of the above cited paradigms. However, whenever it comes to strict requirements, Telecommunication Networks are still underperforming: one of the cause is the weak integration among these paradigms to reactively intervene to the users' need. It is therefore remarkably important to properly evaluate solutions where SDN and NFV are cooperating actively inside the Cloud, leading to more adaptive systems. In this document, after the description of the state of the art in networking, the deployment of an OpenStack Cloud platform on an outperforming cluster will be shown. In addition, its networking capabilities will be improved via a careful cloud firewalling configuration; moreover, this cluster will be integrated with Open Source SDN frameworks to enhance its services. Finally, some measurements showing how much this approach could be interesting will be provided

Genealogical Interpretation: Applications of Genealogy at Historic Sites

Historical sites protect and preserve sites of national importance and shared memories of its citizens (Lenz, 2011; Mackintosh, 2000). These sites document liberty, colonial history, slavery, wars, prominent figures, and more through museums, villages, homes, cemeteries, and battlefields (Utah Education Network, 2012). Interpreters tell the stories of the people who lived and died at the historic site connecting visitors to the resource. Genealogy answers the universal need people have to know who they are and where they come from (Bishop, 2008; Brough, 1995). Interpreters bring the ancestors to life and help the visitor understand what life was like in previous generations (Rubincam, 2012; Tilden, 2007). This study focuses on the perception of benefits derived from linking genealogy and historical interpretation and the benefits of collaboration with historical and genealogical societies. This study found that although visitors occasionally indicate a relationship with the site\u27s subject, sites report that they only moderately or somewhat agree that genealogical interpretation is beneficial. Research found that collaboration with like-minded sites, agencies, and societies, in particular historical and genealogical societies, gives the historic site greater ability to influence visitors (Cappon, 2012; Kunreuther & Corvington, 2007). This study of historical sites showed that most historical sites do not collaborate with genealogical or historical societies but was willing to do so

ASTRONOMY AND LANDSCAPE AT THE PREHISTORIC SETTLEMENT VILLAGGIO DEI FARAGLIONI, USTICA, SICILY

The placement of the Middle Bronze Age settlement Villaggio dei Faraglioni on the Ustica island, one of the best preserved prehistoric village of the Mediterranean area, is analyzed from a cognitive point of view, taking into account archaeoastronomy and landscape archaeology aspects. It turns out that the place might have been selected because of its privileged position with respect to the landscape, better than conforming to utilitarian/defensive considerations, as instead occurs for contemporary, for instance Mycenaean, sites. From the village it was indeed possible to follow the rising and setting of the sun in the months close to the winter solstice on the two elevated peaks existing on the opposite side of the island, in a symmetric way. As a consequence, the inhabitants could determine the day of the winter solstice with an approximation of a few days, using this “partial calendar” for agricultural and navigational purposes. A possible astronomical orientation of the urban layout is also analyzed

IL PROCESSO DI TURNAROUND NELLE PMI: IL CASO MAZZINI MODA SPA

Introduzione. Ampio spazio nella letteratura aziendale ed economica è riconosciuto al tema delle crisi aziendali ed il motivo risiede nella larga diffusione nel nostro Paese del fenomeno in questione. Ad opinione di diversi Autori la crisi dovrebbe essere considerata come una possibile fase della vita d’impresa che scaturisce dal confronto continuo con la discontinuità ambientale; secondo altri , invece, avrebbe un carattere strutturale dovuto alle peculiarità del sistema-paese e delle aziende italiane. Il presente lavoro non ha la pretesa di far luce sull’argomento; più semplicemente si pone l’obiettivo di indagare sulle possibili cause che possono scatenare una crisi d’impresa e soprattutto sulle modalità previste per fronteggiare e superare la crisi stessa. Seguendo queste finalità, nella prima parte ci si focalizza su aspetti teorici: dalle svariate definizioni di crisi ritrovate in dottrina si passa alla descrizione delle diverse strade percorribili per il suo fronteggiamento per poi spostare l’attenzione verso i processi di risanamento extra-giudiziali, con particolare riferimento alle imprese di minori dimensioni. Nella seconda parte viene presentato il caso Mazzini Moda SpA, un’azienda toscana di medio-piccole dimensioni immersa ancora oggi in un processo di turnaround che si spera possa garantire, in un tempo non molto lungo, il rilancio dell’omonimo marchio e la conseguente economicità aziendale perduta. Il caso in esame è particolarmente interessante in quanto sconta in sé molte delle caratteristiche proprie delle PMI italiane; le medesime caratteristiche che ne ostacolano fin troppo spesso la crescita o che, al contrario, ne favoriscono la crisi. Assetti proprietari e manageriali corrispondenti al nucleo familiare, sistemi di controllo inesistenti o comunque inadeguati, procedure non formalizzate, sottocapitalizzazione, ridotta capacità nella ricerca di nuove forme di finanziamento e così via. Questi gli aspetti trattati attraverso la storia dell’azienda, l’analisi dei bilanci, l’analisi di benchmarking con i diretti competitors, e mediante un’analisi che prende in considerazione la strategia operante e le future prospettive strategiche