Courts, Cops, Citizens, and Criminals

The Supreme Court\u27s 4-1-4 split decision in Missouri v. Seibert causes confusion with regard to question-first Miranda violations. Courts apply a Marks narrowest ground analysis to decide which opinion in Seibert is controlling. However, the majority approach to Seibert, which finds Justice Kennedy\u27s concurrence controlling, is incorrect. Instead, lower courts should resolve question-first Miranda violations by applying legal principles expressed in the plurality\u27s decision

The World Wide Warehouse: Using the World Wide Web to Support United States Air Force Needs

In support of the United States allies, the United States Air Force makes military materiel available to foreign military sales (FMS) customers. It often happens that materiel provided to a country becomes obsolete, or excess, to that country as it upgrades or changes its weapons systems. That same materiel could be useful to one or more other allied countries. However, there has been no appropriate mechanism in place to allow one country to make its surplus materiel available to other countries. This paper provides an architecture for a.system that uses the World Wide Web to provide this capabilit

The Digital Rosetta Stone: A Model for Maintaining Long-term Access to Static Digital Documents

In the past several decades, and at an increasing pace, many records that used to be stored on paper have been stored digitally on computer information systems, instead. As older technologies are replaced by newer generations of hardware and software, new schemes for storing and coding the data are introduced. Because of the rapid evolution of technology, future digital systems may not be able to read and/or interpret the digital records made and stored on these older systems, even if those records are still in good condition. We are losing the knowledge of how the old systems stored and coded information. Increasingly, therefore, when we attempt to access and recover those aging documents, we will find that we no longer have the necessary information to do that. This paper addresses the problem of maintaining long-term access to digital documents and provides a methodology for overcoming access difficulties due to technological obsolescence. We created a model, called the Digital Rosetta Stone, that provides a methodology for maintaining long-term access to digital documents. The underlying principle of the model is that knowledge preserved about different storage devices and file formats can be used to recover data from obsolete media and to reconstruct the digital documents. We describe three processes that are necessary for maintaining long-term access to digital documents in their native formats--knowledge preservation, data recovery, and document reconstruction

(VIDEO) Household Chemicals and Prostate Health: Serum Prostate Specific Antigen Levels and Urinary Benzophenone-3, Bisphenol A, and Triclosan Levels in Males: NHANES 2005-2010

Background: Exposure to environmental phenols (e.g., bisphenol A, benzophenone-3, and triclosan) is widespread in the population. Many of these chemicals have been shown to have adverse effects on reproductive organs and hormones, both in vitro and in vivo. Objective: This study aimed to (1) provide descriptive information about prostate specific antigen levels and (2) examine the association of bisphenol A (BPA), benzophenone-3 (BP-3), and triclosan (TCS) with serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels in male participants (ages 40+ years) in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2005-2010. Methods: Geometric and weighted means, chi-square tests, and logistic regressions were used to provide descriptive information about PSA distribution in these male participants. Multivariable logistic regression was used to estimate associations between serum PSA level risk classification for prostate cancer (high and low) and levels of log-transformed and creatinine adjusted urinary BPA, BP-3, and TCS, in male participants. (Preliminary) Results: BP-3 was associated with significantly higher likelihood of higher prostate specific antigen levels and prostatic cancer in males. (Preliminary) Conclusions: To the researcher\u27s knowledge, this is the first study to produce a report on the distribution of PSA in the USA from NHANES. It also is novel in its report of an association of BP-3 with serum PSA in males. However, because of the limitations inherent to the cross-sectional study design, further studies are needed to confirm and elucidate on our findings

Planning for Long Term Access to Digital Documents: An Initial Investigation

Modern information technology creates opportunities for sharing information in ways never before imagined. Researchers are able to search vast databases in less time than it would take them to drive to a research library. Digital documents can be quickly sent to one or many destinations with the press of a key, but, this efficiency comes with a cost. As each generation of technology is replaced by the next at a dizzying pace, we may lose the technology needed to access many older documents. This process, technological obsolescence, may make many of these records unreadable to future generations (Rothenberg 1995:42). According to Rothenberg, action is needed now to ensure that we do not irretrievably lose access to many of our current digital documents. Conceptual models have been proposed for maintaining access to our digital heritage (Heminger and Robertson, 1998), yet it is not known to what extent organizations are aware of this problem and to what extent they may be making plans to address it. This study looked at a large organization that has embraced the use of digital document storage to learn both its awareness of the problem and the extent to which plans have been created to address it

Automated Decision Making and Machine Learning: Regulatory Alternatives for Autonomous Settings

Given growing investment capital in research and development, accompanied by extensive literature on the subject by researchers in nearly every domain from civil engineering to legal studies, automated decision-support systems (ADM) are likely to see a place in the foreseeable future. Artificial intelligence (AI), as an automated system, can be defined as a broad range of computerized tasks designed to replicate human neural networks, store and organize large quantities of information, detect patterns, and make predictions with increasing accuracy and reliability. By itself, artificial intelligence is not quite science-fiction tropes (i.e. an uncontrollable existential threat to humanity) yet not without real-world implications. The fears that come from machines operating autonomously are justified in many ways given their ability to worsen existing inequalities, collapse financial markets (the 2010 “flash crash”), erode trust in societal institutions, and pose threats to physical safety. Still, even when applied in complex social environments, the political and legal mechanisms for dealing with the risks and harms that are likely to arise from artificial intelligence are not obsolete. As this paper seeks to demonstrate, other Information Age technologies have introduced comparable issues. However, the dominant market-based approach to regulation is insufficient in dealing with issues related to artificial intelligence because of the unique risks they pose to civil liberties and human rights. Assuming the government has a role in protecting values and ensuring societal well-being, in this paper, I work toward an alternative regulatory approach that focuses on regulating the commercial side of automated decision-making and machine learning techniques

Deployed Communications in an Austere Environment: A Delphi Study

The information and communications technology (ICT) field is undergoing a period of tremendous change. The exponential growth rate of ICT capability in recent decades, which has had an undeniable effect on every aspect of our society, will likely have ramifications for military operations in austere environments. 1 The Air Force’s 689th Combat Communications Wing commissioned a study to forecast the future of mobile ICT in such environments. Researchers at the Air Force Institute of Technology chose to employ the Delphi technique as the methodology for executing this task. The following scenario, based on the results of that study, demonstrates how possible changes in ICT might affect military operations. The article then discusses relevant issues that one would need to address before such possibilities become reality