Ethical Issues in Text Mining for Mental Health

A recent systematic review of Machine Learning (ML) approaches to health data, containing over 100 studies, found that the most investigated problem was mental health (Yin et al., 2019). Relatedly, recent estimates suggest that between 165,000 and 325,000 health and wellness apps are now commercially available, with over 10,000 of those designed specifically for mental health (Carlo et al., 2019). In light of these trends, the present chapter has three aims: (1) provide an informative overview of some of the recent work taking place at the intersection of text mining and mental health so that we can (2) highlight and analyze several pressing ethical issues that are arising in this rapidly growing field and (3) suggest productive directions for how these issues might be better addressed within future interdisciplinary work to ensure the responsible development of text mining approaches in psychology generally, and in mental health fields, specifically. In Section 1, we review some of the recent literature on text-mining and mental health in the contexts of traditional experimental settings, social media, and research involving electronic health records. Then, in Section 2, we introduce and discuss ethical concerns that arise before, during, and after research is conducted. Finally, in Section 3, we offer several suggestions about how ethical oversight of text-mining research might be improved to be more responsive to the concerns mapped out in Section 2

Persons or datapoints?: Ethics, artificial intelligence, and the participatory turn in mental health research

This article identifies and examines a tension in mental health researchers’ growing enthusiasm for the use of computational tools powered by advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML). Although there is increasing recognition of the value of participatory methods in science generally and in mental health research specifically, many AI/ML approaches, fueled by an ever-growing number of sensors collecting multimodal data, risk further distancing participants from research processes and rendering them as mere vectors or collections of data points. The imperatives of the “participatory turn” in mental health research may be at odds with the (often unquestioned) assumptions and data collection methods of AI/ML approaches. This article aims to show why this is a problem and how it might be addressed

Answering Dreyfus's Challenge: Toward a Theory of Concepts without Intellectualism

John McDowell’s debates about concepts with Robert Brandom and Hubert Dreyfus over the past two decades reveal key commitments each philosopher makes. McDowell is committed to giving concepts a role in our embodied coping, extending rational form to human experience. Brandom is committed to defining concepts in a way that helps make rationality distinct. And Dreyfus is committed to explaining how rational understanding develops out of lesser abilities we share with human infants and other animals (I call this “Dreyfus’s challenge”). These commitments appear irreconcilable. I argue to the contrary that they are, in principle, reconcilable, provided we give up their shared “rationalist” commitment to the idea that the rational use of language is necessary for having concepts. First, I exploit Brandom and McDowell’s debate to motivate abandoning the rationalist commitment. Next, I exploit Dreyfus and McDowell’s debate to establish the need for a broader notion of concepts to answer Dreyfus’s challenge. I turn to Elizabeth Camp’s broader notion of concepts as spontaneously, systematically recombinable representations, and establish that it lacks resources for distinguishing human rationality. To resolve that weakness, I integrate Camp’s notion of concepts with John Haugeland’s theory of objectivity, which does make rationality distinct. Finally, drawing my integration of Camp and Haugeland, I propose a way to answer Dreyfus’s challenge, which I call “relaxed holism.” The core of relaxed holism is a cumulative, developmental sequence of three related cognitive abilities: representation, concepts, and metacognition. I argue that relaxed holism also reconciles both McDowell’s commitment to giving normatively governed concepts a role in embodied coping, and Brandom’s commitment to defining concepts in a way that helps make rationality distinct

ConvBKI: Real-Time Probabilistic Semantic Mapping Network with Quantifiable Uncertainty

In this paper, we develop a modular neural network for real-time semantic mapping in uncertain environments, which explicitly updates per-voxel probabilistic distributions within a neural network layer. Our approach combines the reliability of classical probabilistic algorithms with the performance and efficiency of modern neural networks. Although robotic perception is often divided between modern differentiable methods and classical explicit methods, a union of both is necessary for real-time and trustworthy performance. We introduce a novel Convolutional Bayesian Kernel Inference (ConvBKI) layer which incorporates semantic segmentation predictions online into a 3D map through a depthwise convolution layer by leveraging conjugate priors. We compare ConvBKI against state-of-the-art deep learning approaches and probabilistic algorithms for mapping to evaluate reliability and performance. We also create a Robot Operating System (ROS) package of ConvBKI and test it on real-world perceptually challenging off-road driving data.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2209.1066

Politics, economics, and spatial organization in two Québécois Cities

In this dissertation I present the results of comparative ethnographic and spatial research carried out in Alma and Saint-Georges, Québec between August 2015 and July 2016. I chose these cities as field sites in order to study why two populations of nearly equal size (roughly thirty thousand) and extremely similar demographic, economic and social characteristics voted differently since 1976 on the two most salient political cleavages in Québec – the left-right spectrum on economic issues and the question of provincial sovereignty. In the dissertation, I argue three main points. First, the political differences expressed in the voting histories of Alma and Saint-Georges seem to result from the different relationships between government and industrial development in Alma and Saint-Georges. I argue that a majority of people in Alma voted for left-of-centre political parties and for greater provincial sovereignty since 1976 because Alma's economic development was created by international capital that was regulated and planned by provincial authorities. In Saint-Georges, the majority of voters elected right-of-centre political parties and voted for federalism because the city's economic development was largely created by local entrepreneurs and by endogenous sources of capital. The second point I argue is that the relationship between people and their built environments can be used as a material index of political values. Using space syntax methods and Geographic Information Systems, I show that there are measurable spatial differences between Alma and Saint-Georges and explain how these differences reflect the political values of the respective majorities in both cities.The final point I argue is that the political and spatial differences between Alma and Saint-Georges can be considered justifiably cultural. I cover why the culture concept has fallen into disrepute in the discipline of anthropology and argue for its continued relevance. This dissertation could be useful to students and researchers who are interested in voting behaviour, Québec politics, anthropological theory, space syntax methods and the relationship between humanity and its built environment.Cette thèse présente les résultats de recherches ethnographiques et spatiales comparatives réalisées à Alma et Saint-Georges (Québec, Canada) entre août 2015 et juillet 2016. Ces villes ont été sélectionnées afin de comprendre de quelles manières ces deux populations d'environ trente mille habitants et des caractéristiques démographiques, économiques et sociales similaires, ont voté différemment depuis 1976 sur les deux clivages politiques les plus saillants au Québec: le spectre gauche-droite sur les questions économiques et la question de la souveraineté provinciale.Dans cette thèse, je discute trois points principaux. Premièrement, je considère les différences politiques exprimées dans les histoires électorales d'Alma et de Saint-Georges résultant des différentes relations entre le gouvernement et le développement industriel à Alma et Saint-Georges. Je soutiens que la majorité des citoyens d'Alma ont voté pour des partis politiques de gauche et pour une plus grande souveraineté provinciale depuis 1976 en réponse au développement économique d'Alma créé par l'appropriation d'un capital international réglementé et planifié par les autorités provinciales. À Saint-Georges, la majorité des électeurs ont plutôt élu des partis politiques de droite et ont voté pour le fédéralisme puisque le développement économique de la ville était, en grande partie, créé par des entrepreneurs locaux et par des sources de capitaux endogènes. En deuxième lieu, j'argumente que la relation entre les gens et leurs environnements construits peut être utilisée comme un indice matériel des valeurs politiques. En utilisant des méthodes de syntaxe spatiale et des Systèmes d'Information Géographique, je démontre qu'il existe des différences spatiales mesurables entre Alma et Saint-Georges et j'explique comment ces différences reflètent les valeurs politiques des majorités respectives dans les deux villes.Finalement, je suggère que les différences politiques et spatiales entre Alma et Saint-Georges soulignent certaines balises culturelles. À travers cette perspective, j'interroge le manque de pertinence attribué au concept de culture dans les débats contemporains en anthropologie et je repositionne son importance analytique. Cette thèse sera utile pour les étudiants et les chercheurs qui s'intéressent au comportement électoral, à la politique québécoise, à la théorie anthropologique, aux méthodes de syntaxe spatiale et aux relations entre l'humain et l'environnement construit

Tribes and revolution; the 'social factor' in Muammar Gadhafi's Libya and beyond

A revolt against Colonel Muammar Gadhafi's Libyan government began in February of 2011. The conflict lasted for eight months and affected the entire country. Two distinct sides fought for control during those eight months making the conflict a civil war. This master's thesis uses a series of interviews as well as the academic and journalistic literature produced about the Libyan conflict to argue that the war should also be understood as a revolution. Considering the war a revolution introduces a number of puzzles. Firstly, Colonel Gadhafi's position within Libya was officially symbolic in much the same way Great Britain's royalty is in Canada, yet Gadhafi was named as the revolution's primary enemy. Secondly, Libya was officially a popular democracy with no executive administrative branches. A revolution against a political elite was therefore theoretically impossible. Nonetheless, the Libyans I interviewed considered Gadhafi more than the purely symbolic leader of Libya, and felt that Libya was actually closer to a dictatorship than a popular democracy. This thesis investigates the discrepancies between official and unofficial realities in Libya by exploring the role of society in the history of Colonel Gadhafi's government. My analysis is focused by the question, "what role did tribes play in Libya's revolution?" I argue that tribes provided a system for conceptually organizing Libya's society during Colonel Gadhafi's tenure. This conceptual organization of Libya's society is both in evidence and contested by the revolution.Une révolte contre le gouvernement libyen du colonel Mouammar Kadhafi a commencé en Février 2011. Le conflit a duré huit mois et a affecté l'ensemble du pays. Deux parties distinctes se sont battus pour le contrôle pendant ces huit mois donc ce conflit peut-être considerer une guerre civile. Cette thèse utilise une série d'entrevues ainsi que la littérature académique et journalistique produite sur le conflit libyen de soutenir que la guerre doit aussi être comprise comme une révolution. Compte tenu de la guerre, une révolution introduit un certain nombre d'énigmes. Tout d'abord, la position du colonel Kadhafi en Libye a été officiellement symbolique en même façon que la royauté de la Grande-Bretagne est au Canada, mais Kadhafi a été pensé comme principal ennemi de la révolution. Deuxièmement, la Libye est officiellement une démocratie populaire sans branches administratives exécutives. Une révolution contre une élite politique était donc théoriquement impossible. Néanmoins, les Libyens que j'ai interviewé ont considéré Kadhafi plus que le leader purement symbolique de la Libye, et a estimé que la Libye était en fait plus proche d'une dictature qu'à une démocratie populaire. Cette thèse étudie les différences entre les réalités officielles et non officielles en Libye, en explorant le rôle de la société dans l'histoire du gouvernement du colonel Kadhafi. Mon analyse est focalisée par la question: «Quel est la rôle que les tribus jouaient dans la révolution de la Libye?" Je soutiens que les tribus ont fourni un système pour organiser conceptuellement la société de la Libye au cours du mandat du colonel Kadhafi. Cette organisatio