Evading the Algorithm: The Increased Propensity for Tax Evasion in Human-Computer Interactions

Today's modern world is characterized by an increasing shift from human-to-human interaction towards human-computer-interaction (HCI). With the implementation of artificial agents as inspectors, as can be seen in today’s airports, supermarkets or most recently within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, our everyday life is progressively shaped around interacting with automated agents. While various studies have looked at cooperative strategic interaction between humans, little is known about how HCI affects humans and their non-cooperative decision-making. Therefore, a deeper understanding of the factors influencing strategic decision-making processes within HCI situations, and how perceptions of automated agents’ capabilities might influence these decisions is required. This gap is addressed by extending a non-cooperative inspection game experiment with a tax evasion frame, implementing automated agents as inspectors. Hereby a within-subject design is used to investigate (1) how HCI differs from human-to-human interactions in this context and (2) how the complexity and perceived capabilities of automated agents affect human decision-making. The results indicate significant differences in decisions to evade taxes, with participants more likely to evade taxes when being inspected by automated agents compared to humans. Participants were also less likely to evade taxes when playing against an automated agent described to be a complex AI compared to an automated agent described to be a simple algorithm once they had experienced different agents

Hydrological Processes in a High Alpine Watershed

Alpine hydrology is particularly challenging due to the complexity of mountainous terrain and the spatial and temporal variability of meteorological parameters such as precipitation, temperature and evaporation. Yet improving our understanding of hydrological processes in alpine regions is critical for freshwater management and for protection against natural hazards. Since 2009, the upper Val Ferret watershed in the Swiss Alps is monitored with a large variety of instruments to measure hydrological, meteorological and pedological parameters at high temporal and spatial resolution. In this dissertation, the data collected during three consecutive summer field campaigns from 2011 to 2013 has been utilized. We deployed a wireless network of meteorological stations, continuously measured the stream discharge at three locations and made use of a one meter resolution Digital Elevation Model of the watershed. In particular, we focused on the influence of the geomorphology on several streamflow generation processes. The topographical and geomorphological complexity of the Val Ferret watershed is illustrated by the structure of the channel network, which was carefully mapped in the field. The spatial distribution of the channel network was particularly heterogeneous, with certain areas characterized by a high density of groundwater channel heads and perennial streams. This highly uneven drainage density had a significant impact on modeling storm hydrographs. Other channel networks, extracted from the Digital Elevation Model using classical methods, were not able to capture this spatial variability. More advanced extraction techniques relying on curvature and openness showed superior efficacy. Recession events are defined as periods without precipitation during which water stored in the watershed is released and the streamflow is in decline. Although they have been widely studied previously, we have analyzed their link to the basin geomorphology in detail. Based on a recent study, we propose a simple conceptual model in which the temporal variation of the river network is computed and linked to a classic power law parametrization of recession curves. Furthermore, we analyzed daily streamflow fluctuations that occurred during recession events in the upper Val Ferret watershed. In one of the monitored sub basins, we observed that evaporation from the perennial riparian area was inducing a diurnal streamflow cycle. In another sub basin, we observed a diurnal streamflow cycle induced by ice melt from a small glacier. Both cycles occurred at similar times of the day but with perturbations in opposite directions. However, the evaporation induced streamflow cycle was never observed at the outlet of the watershed as the amplitude of the glacier-fed ice cycle was larger than the one due to evaporation. The geomorphology of the riparian area contributing to the evaporation cycley was analyzed cautiously and linked to the ice melt diurnal cycle, given that it is damped by evaporation. In order to better understand streamflow generation during precipitation events, we analyzed threshold relations between antecedent soil water potential and runoff coefficients above which the latter ones were increasing and the response time of the catchment shortened. Unlike many recent studies, we did not observe threshold behaviors between antecedent soil moisture and runoff coefficients, pointing out the importance of hysteresis effects at the hillslope scale

Societal Acceptance of Urban Drones: A Scoping Literature Review

The use of drones (or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) in urban areas has emerged rapidly in the last decade, and continues to expand at an accelerating pace. Alongside the emergent uses of high-impact technology in both public and private sectors, political debates about the potential risks and challenges have arisen, encompassing diverse perspectives and attitudes about the ethical, legal, social, and regulatory implications of introducing and integrating new technology in society. This scoping review offers an assessment of the societal acceptance factors of urban drones discussed in the current academic literature. We used a hybrid approach including quantitative landscape mapping and qualitative content analysis of the selected articles to inductively develop a typology of acceptance factors associated with urban use of drones. This review illuminates areas that have been the focus of attention within the current body of knowledge (e.g., visual and noise pollution of drones), sketches the evolution of the relevant discussions over time (e.g., a focus on the safety of the drone technology toward safety of the cargo it carries and security of the data it collects), and points to areas that have received less considerations (e.g., media appropriation and social group influence). It can, thus, help situate the topic of societal acceptance of urban drones in specific contexts, and orient future research on promoting value sensitive innovation in society more broadly

Experiences in using INCA-CH precipitation nowcasting for Urban Flood Nowcasting

Presentación realizada en la 3rd European Nowcasting Conference, celebrada en la sede central de AEMET en Madrid del 24 al 26 de abril de 2019

Evading the Algorithm: Increased Propensity for Tax Evasion and Norm Violations in Human-Computer Interactions

Today's modern world is characterized by an increasing shift from human-to-human interaction toward human-computer-interaction (HCI). With the implementation of artificial agents as inspectors, as can be seen in today's airports, supermarkets, or, most recently, within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, our everyday life is progressively shaped around interacting with automated agents. While our understanding of HCI is evolving, it is still in nascent stages. This is particularly true in the sphere of non-cooperative strategic interactions between humans and automated agents, which remains largely unexplored and calls for further investigation. A deeper understanding of the factors influencing strategic decision-making processes within HCI situations, and how perceptions of automated agents' capabilities might influence these decisions, is required. This gap is addressed by extending a non-cooperative inspection-game experiment with a tax-evasion frame, implementing automated agents as inspectors. Here, a within-subject design is used to investigate (1) how HCI differs from human-to-human interactions in this context and (2) how the complexity and perceived capabilities of automated agents affect human decision-making. The results indicate significant differences in decisions to evade taxes, with participants more likely to evade taxes when they are inspected by automated agents rather than by humans. These results may also be transferred to norm violations more generally, which may become more likely when participants are controlled by computers rather than by humans. Our results further show that participants were less likely to evade taxes when playing against an automated agent described as a complex AI, compared to an automated agent described as a simple algorithm, once they had experienced different agents

MULTI-BUNCH EFFECT OF RESISTIVEWALL IN THE CLIC BDS

Wake fields in the CLIC Beam Delivery System (BDS) can cause severe single or multi-bunch effects leading to luminosity loss. The main contributors in the BDS are geometric and resistive wall wake fields of the collimators and resistive wall wakes of the beam pipe. The present work focuses only on the multi-bunch effects from resistive wall. Using particle tracking with wake fields through the BDS, we have established the aperture radius, above which the effect of the wake fields becomes negligible. Our simulations were later extended to include a realistic aperture model along the BDS as well as the collimators. The two cases of 3 TeV and 500 GeV have been examined

Could electrical conductivity replace water level in rating curves for alpine streams?

Streamflow time series are important for inference and understanding of the hydrological processes in alpine watersheds. Because streamflow is expensive to continuously measure directly, it is usually derived from measured water levels, using a rating curve modeling the stage-discharge relationship. In alpine streams, this practice is complicated by the fact that the streambed constantly changes due to erosion and sedimentation by the turbulent mountain streams. This makes the stage-discharge relationship dynamic, requiring frequent discharge gaugings to have reliable streamflow estimates. During an ongoing field study in the Val Ferret watershed in the Swiss Alps, 93 streamflow values were measured in the period 2009–2011 using salt dilution gauging with the gulp injection method. The natural background electrical conductivity in the stream, which was measured as by-product of these gaugings, was shown to be a strong predictor for the streamflow, even marginally outperforming water level. Analysis of the residuals of both predictive relations revealed errors in the gauged streamflows. These could be corrected by filtering disinformation from erroneous calibration coefficients. In total, extracting information from the auxiliary data enabled to reduce the uncertainty in the rating curve, as measured by the root-mean-square error in log-transformed streamflow relative to that of the original stage-discharge relationship, by 43.7%

Urban stormwater capture for water supply: look out for persistent, mobile and toxic substances

publishedVersio

Threshold modeling of extreme spatial rainfall

We propose an approach to spatial modeling of extreme rainfall, based on max-stable processes fitted using partial duration series and a censored threshold likelihood function. The resulting models are coherent with classical extreme-value theory and allow the consistent treatment of spatial dependence of rainfall using ideas related to those of classical geostatistics. We illustrate the ideas through data from the Val Ferret watershed in the Swiss Alps, based on daily cumulative rainfall totals recorded at 24 stations for four summers, augmented by a longer series from nearby. We compare the fits of different statistical models appropriate for spatial extremes, select that best fitting our data, and compare return level estimates for the total daily rainfall over the stations. The method can be used in other situations to produce simulations needed for hydrological models, and in particular, for the generation of spatially heterogeneous extreme rainfall fields over catchments

Controls on the diurnal streamflow cycles in two subbasins of an alpine headwater catchment

In high-altitude alpine catchments, diurnal streamflow cycles are typically dominated by snowmelt or ice melt. Evapotranspiration-induced diurnal streamflow cycles are less observed in these catchments but might happen simultaneously. During a field campaign in the summer 2012 in an alpine catchment in the Swiss Alps (Val Ferret catchment, 20.4 km2, glaciarized area: 2%), we observed a transition in the early season from a snowmelt to an evapotranspiration-induced diurnal streamflow cycle in one of two monitored subbasins. The two different cycles were of comparable amplitudes and the transition happened within a time span of several days. In the second monitored subbasin, we observed an ice melt-dominated diurnal cycle during the entire season due to the presence of a small glacier. Comparisons between ice melt and evapotranspiration cycles showed that the two processes were happening at the same times of day but with a different sign and a different shape. The amplitude of the ice melt cycle decreased exponentially during the season and was larger than the amplitude of the evapotranspiration cycle which was relatively constant during the season. Our study suggests that an evapotranspiration-dominated diurnal streamflow cycle could damp the ice melt-dominated diurnal streamflow cycle. The two types of diurnal streamflow cycles were separated using a method based on the identification of the active riparian area and measurement of evapotranspiration