Ethical and Social Challenges with developing Automated Methods to Detect and Warn potential victims of Mass-marketing Fraud (MMF)

Mass-marketing frauds (MMFs) are on the increase. Given the amount of monies lost and the psychological impact of MMFs there is an urgent need to develop new and effective methods to prevent more of these crimes. This paper reports the early planning of automated methods our interdisciplinary team are developing to prevent and detect MMF. Importantly, the paper presents the ethical and social constraints involved in such a model and suggests concerns others might also consider when developing automated systems

Assistive technology design and development for acceptable robotics companions for ageing years

© 2013 Farshid Amirabdollahian et al., licensee Versita Sp. z o. o. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, which means that the text may be used for non-commercial purposes, provided credit is given to the author.A new stream of research and development responds to changes in life expectancy across the world. It includes technologies which enhance well-being of individuals, specifically for older people. The ACCOMPANY project focuses on home companion technologies and issues surrounding technology development for assistive purposes. The project responds to some overlooked aspects of technology design, divided into multiple areas such as empathic and social human-robot interaction, robot learning and memory visualisation, and monitoring persons’ activities at home. To bring these aspects together, a dedicated task is identified to ensure technological integration of these multiple approaches on an existing robotic platform, Care-O-Bot®3 in the context of a smart-home environment utilising a multitude of sensor arrays. Formative and summative evaluation cycles are then used to assess the emerging prototype towards identifying acceptable behaviours and roles for the robot, for example role as a butler or a trainer, while also comparing user requirements to achieved progress. In a novel approach, the project considers ethical concerns and by highlighting principles such as autonomy, independence, enablement, safety and privacy, it embarks on providing a discussion medium where user views on these principles and the existing tension between some of these principles, for example tension between privacy and autonomy over safety, can be captured and considered in design cycles and throughout project developmentsPeer reviewe

Semantic annotation for computational pathology : multidisciplinary experience and best practice recommendations

Recent advances in whole‐slide imaging (WSI) technology have led to the development of a myriad of computer vision and artificial intelligence‐based diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive algorithms. Computational Pathology (CPath) offers an integrated solution to utilise information embedded in pathology WSIs beyond what can be obtained through visual assessment. For automated analysis of WSIs and validation of machine learning (ML) models, annotations at the slide, tissue, and cellular levels are required. The annotation of important visual constructs in pathology images is an important component of CPath projects. Improper annotations can result in algorithms that are hard to interpret and can potentially produce inaccurate and inconsistent results. Despite the crucial role of annotations in CPath projects, there are no well‐defined guidelines or best practices on how annotations should be carried out. In this paper, we address this shortcoming by presenting the experience and best practices acquired during the execution of a large‐scale annotation exercise involving a multidisciplinary team of pathologists, ML experts, and researchers as part of the Pathology image data Lake for Analytics, Knowledge and Education (PathLAKE) consortium. We present a real‐world case study along with examples of different types of annotations, diagnostic algorithm, annotation data dictionary, and annotation constructs. The analyses reported in this work highlight best practice recommendations that can be used as annotation guidelines over the lifecycle of a CPath project

La agenda naturalista de las pasiones en la filosofía de la modernidad temprana

In this paper we will try to characterize the main theoretical grounds that promoted the change of view from Scholasticism to Early Modern Philosophy on the emotive and cognitive faculties; to achieve this task, we will summarize the intellectual background for the study of passions; then, we will differentiate two mainly “naturalistic” trends of thought: First, the reductionist thesis, adopted by Thomas Hobbes, Pierre Gassendi and René Descartes, among others; and second, the attempt to establish and describe the dynamics of mental life, which was developed by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and David Hume. On giving this account, we expect also to gain a clearer comprehension about the changes of perspective that were proposed by some Early Modern thinkers, whose views developed towards a new naturalized philosophical anthropology.En este artículo trataremos de caracterizar las principales razones teóricas del cambio de perspectiva del escolasticismo a la filosofía de la modernidad temprana en lo concerniente al estudio de las facultades cognitivas y emotivas. Para lograr nuestro objetivo, sintetizaremos el contexto intelectual del estudio de las pasiones; después, distinguiremos dos grandes corrientes del pensamiento naturalista: en primer lugar, la tesis reduccionista que fue adoptada, entre otros, por Thomas Hobbes, Pierre Gassendi y René Descartes; en segundo lugar, el proyecto de establecer y describir la “dinámica de la vida mental” que fue desarrollado por Thomas Hobbes, John Locke y David Hume. Al dar cuenta de esto, esperamos también obtener una comprensión más clara sobre los cambios de perspectiva que fueron propuestos por algunos filósofos de la modernidad temprana, cuyas ideas avanzaron hacia la naturalización de la antropología filosófica

Cross-Border Mobility of Self-Initiated and Organizational Expatriates

Globalization in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries has been marked by an increase in cross-border mobility of the highly skilled. Though self-initiated expatriation is a widespread phenomenon, it has received relatively little attention in the academic literature. Furthermore, large-scale studies that track self-initiated and organizational expatriates together, over time and across geographies, are noticeably absent from the literature. Consequently, our understanding of these two forms of mobility is relatively limited. This study, which is the first large-scale analysis of the trends in and patterns of the mobility of organization-initiated expatriates and self-initiated expatriates, attempts to fill this gap by analyzing the mobility patterns of 55,915 highly skilled individuals who made 76,660 cross-border moves between 1990 and 2006. Specifically, we analyze patterns of geographic mobility and then examine the rate, duration, and direction of self-initiated and organizational expatriation over time. Finally, we consider demographic differences in mobility between the two groups

Organizational outcomes in an exploration-exploitation framework: Corporate social performance, capital structure and cash holdings

This thesis aims to contribute to stratégie management research. Currently, both scholars and researehers examine issues related to the antecedents of the exploration exploitation framework but rarely examine issues related organizational outputs based on firms following an exploration or exploitation strategy. The uniqueness of this work can first be seen in its theoretical approach. This thesis will use three différent debates in related literatures-corporate social performance (CSP), capital structure and cash holdings- and examine these debates using the exploration- exploitation framework as the main analytical tool. The application of exploration- exploitation perspective results in a changed understanding in each of these three literatures and in the exploration and exploitation framework. In particular, firms following an exploration or exploitation strategy develop routines that impact the structure and organizational outputs. The more these firms pursue their given strategy, the more their structures are aligned with the strategy making it difficult to move from their orientation. The results show the importance of strategy and structure in relationship to each individual field and the exploration-exploitation framework. The methodological approach of this thesis is based on archivai data from Datastream and Worldscope. Corporate accounting and performance data are selected from a large sample of international firms. These companies represents over 90+ différent industries and 30+ countries. Estimâtes of an individual firm's orientation and focus (exploration or exploitation) is calculated using micro-economic theory. In brief, this thesis présents the following contributions: firstly, this work changes the way the antecedents in the exploration-exploitation framework are understood. It does so by demonstrating that antecedents can also be outputs of the framework. Secondly, this dissertation integrates corporate social performance into the exploration-exploitation framework. This is one of the first dissertations to do so. Thirdly, this dissertation shows that strategy and orientation matter in literatures examining firm outeomes: CSP, finance, etc. Without accounting for strategy, researehers overlook how firm décisions create heterogeneity in firm outeomes. Last, this dissertation indireetly shows that exploitation firms adjust their structures to survive and overcome environmental shocks both institutional (CSR) and financial (2007 crisis). This then challenges the ideas of organizational ambidexterity and suggests that environmental shocks may help exploitation firms survive long-term. -- La présente thèse se propose d'apporter une contribution à la recherche en matière de management stratégique. A l'heure actuelle, les spécialistes et les chercheurs étudient les questions liées aux antécédents du cadre exploration-exploitation, mais ils étudient rarement les questions liées aux différents résultats organisationnels résultant de l'adoption par les entreprises d'une stratégie d'exploration ou d'exploitation. Le caractère unique de la présente recherche réside dans son approche théorique. La présente thèse utilise trois différents débats présents dans des littératures liées - la performance sociale, la structure du capital et les liquidités détenues - et elle examine ces débats en utilisant le cadre exploration-exploitation comme outil d'analyse. L'application de la perspective exploration-exploitation entraîne une modification de la compréhension dans chacune de ces littératures et dans le cadre exploration-exploitation. En particulier, les entreprises adoptant une stratégie d'exploration ou d'exploitation mettent en place des routines qui influent sur leur structure et leurs résultats organisationnels. Plus les entreprises poursuivent une stratégie donnée, plus leurs structures sont alignées sur cette stratégie, ce qui rend difficile l'abandon de cette orientation. Les résultats font apparaître l'importance de la stratégie et de la structure en relation à chaque domaine individuel et au cadre exploration-exploitation. L'approche méthodologique de la présente thèse se fonde sur des données d'archives issues de Datastream et de Worldscope. Des données comptables et de performances sont sélectionnées pour un échantillon consistant d'entreprises internationales, représentant plus de 90 secteurs et plus de 30 pays. Les estimations de l'orientation d'une entreprise donnée (exploration ou exploitation) sont calculées au moyen de la théorie microéconomique. En bref, la présente thèse apporte les contributions suivantes : en premier lieu, elle change la conception des antécédents dans le cadre exploration-exploitation. Elle le fait en montrant que les antécédents peuvent aussi être des résultats du cadre. En deuxième lieu, elle intègre la performance sociale dans le cadre exploration-exploitation. C'est l'une des premières thèses à le faire. En troisième lieu, elle montre que la stratégie et l'orientation importent dans la littérature ayant pour objet les résultats des entreprises : performance sociale, finance etc. Faute de tenir compte de la stratégie, les chercheurs négligent la façon dont les décisions des entreprises engendrent de l'hétérogénéité dans les résultats de ces dernières. En dernier lieu, la présente thèse montre indirectement que les entreprises ayant adopté une stratégie d'exploitation ajustent leurs structures pour survivre et surmonter des chocs environnementaux aussi bien institutionnels (performance sociale) que financiers (crise de 2007). Cela remet donc en question les idées d'ambidextrie organisationnelle et suggère que les chocs environnementaux pourraient aider les entreprises ayant adopté une stratégie d'exploitation à survivre sur le long terme