Accountable Algorithms

Many important decisions historically made by people are now made by computers. Algorithms count votes, approve loan and credit card applications, target citizens or neighborhoods for police scrutiny, select taxpayers for IRS audit, grant or deny immigration visas, and more. The accountability mechanisms and legal standards that govern such decision processes have not kept pace with technology. The tools currently available to policymakers, legislators, and courts were developed to oversee human decisionmakers and often fail when applied to computers instead. For example, how do you judge the intent of a piece of software? Because automated decision systems can return potentially incorrect, unjustified, or unfair results, additional approaches are needed to make such systems accountable and governable. This Article reveals a new technological toolkit to verify that automated decisions comply with key standards of legal fairness. We challenge the dominant position in the legal literature that transparency will solve these problems. Disclosure of source code is often neither necessary (because of alternative techniques from computer science) nor sufficient (because of the issues analyzing code) to demonstrate the fairness of a process. Furthermore, transparency may be undesirable, such as when it discloses private information or permits tax cheats or terrorists to game the systems determining audits or security screening. The central issue is how to assure the interests of citizens, and society as a whole, in making these processes more accountable. This Article argues that technology is creating new opportunities—subtler and more flexible than total transparency—to design decisionmaking algorithms so that they better align with legal and policy objectives. Doing so will improve not only the current governance of automated decisions, but also—in certain cases—the governance of decisionmaking in general. The implicit (or explicit) biases of human decisionmakers can be difficult to find and root out, but we can peer into the “brain” of an algorithm: computational processes and purpose specifications can be declared prior to use and verified afterward. The technological tools introduced in this Article apply widely. They can be used in designing decisionmaking processes from both the private and public sectors, and they can be tailored to verify different characteristics as desired by decisionmakers, regulators, or the public. By forcing a more careful consideration of the effects of decision rules, they also engender policy discussions and closer looks at legal standards. As such, these tools have far-reaching implications throughout law and society. Part I of this Article provides an accessible and concise introduction to foundational computer science techniques that can be used to verify and demonstrate compliance with key standards of legal fairness for automated decisions without revealing key attributes of the decisions or the processes by which the decisions were reached. Part II then describes how these techniques can assure that decisions are made with the key governance attribute of procedural regularity, meaning that decisions are made under an announced set of rules consistently applied in each case. We demonstrate how this approach could be used to redesign and resolve issues with the State Department’s diversity visa lottery. In Part III, we go further and explore how other computational techniques can assure that automated decisions preserve fidelity to substantive legal and policy choices. We show how these tools may be used to assure that certain kinds of unjust discrimination are avoided and that automated decision processes behave in ways that comport with the social or legal standards that govern the decision. We also show how automated decisionmaking may even complicate existing doctrines of disparate treatment and disparate impact, and we discuss some recent computer science work on detecting and removing discrimination in algorithms, especially in the context of big data and machine learning. And lastly, in Part IV, we propose an agenda to further synergistic collaboration between computer science, law, and policy to advance the design of automated decision processes for accountabilit

Advanced Fluorescence Microscopy Techniques-FRAP, FLIP, FLAP, FRET and FLIM

Fluorescence microscopy provides an efficient and unique approach to study fixed and living cells because of its versatility, specificity, and high sensitivity. Fluorescence microscopes can both detect the fluorescence emitted from labeled molecules in biological samples as images or photometric data from which intensities and emission spectra can be deduced. By exploiting the characteristics of fluorescence, various techniques have been developed that enable the visualization and analysis of complex dynamic events in cells, organelles, and sub-organelle components within the biological specimen. The techniques described here are fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP), the related fluorescence loss in photobleaching (FLIP), fluorescence localization after photobleaching (FLAP), Forster or fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) and the different ways how to measure FRET, such as acceptor bleaching, sensitized emission, polarization anisotropy, and fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM). First, a brief introduction into the mechanisms underlying fluorescence as a physical phenomenon and fluorescence, confocal, and multiphoton microscopy is given. Subsequently, these advanced microscopy techniques are introduced in more detail, with a description of how these techniques are performed, what needs to be considered, and what practical advantages they can bring to cell biological research

Deworming drugs for soil-transmitted intestinal worms in children: effects on nutritional indicators, haemoglobin and school performance (Review)

Background The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends treating all school children at regular intervals with deworming drugs in areas where helminth infection is common. The WHO state this will improve nutritional status, haemoglobin, and cognition and thus will improve health, intellect, and school attendance. Consequently, it is claimed that school performance will improve, child mortality will decline, and economic productivity will increase. Given the important health and societal benefits attributed to this intervention, we sought to determine whether they are based on reliable evidence. Objectives To summarize the effects of giving deworming drugs to children to treat soil-transmitted intestinal worms (nematode geohelminths) on weight, haemoglobin, and cognition; and the evidence of impact on physical well being, school attendance, school performance, and mortality. Search methods In February 2012, we searched the Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group Specialized Register, MEDLINE, EMBASE, LILACS, mRCT, and reference lists, and registers of ongoing and completed trials. Selection criteria We selected randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and quasi-RCTs comparing deworming drugs for geohelminth worms with placebo or no treatment in children aged 16 years or less, reporting on weight, haemoglobin, and formal test of intellectual development. In cluster-RCTs treating communities or schools, we also sought data on school attendance, school performance, and mortality. We included trials that included health education with deworming. Data collection and analysis At least two authors independently assessed the trials, evaluated risk of bias, and extracted data. Continuous data were analysed using the mean difference (MD) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Where data were missing, we contacted trial authors. We used GRADE to assess evidence quality, and this is reflected in the wording we used: high quality ("deworming improves...."); moderate quality ("deworming probably improves..."); low quality ("deworming may improve...."); and very low quality ("we don't know if deworming improves...."). Main results We identified 42 trials, including eight cluster trials, that met the inclusion criteria. Excluding one trial where data are awaited, the 41 trials include 65,168 participants. Screening then treating For children known to be infected with worms (by screening), a single dose of deworming drugs may increase weight (0.58 kg, 95% CI 0.40 to 0.76, three trials, 139 participants; low quality evidence) and may increase haemoglobin (0.37 g/dL, 95% CI 0.1 to 0.64, two trials, 108 participants; low quality evidence), but we do not know if there is an effect on cognitive functioning (two trials, very low quality evidence). Single dose deworming for all children In trials treating all children, a single dose of deworming drugs gave mixed effects on weight, with no effects evident in seven trials, but large effects in two (nine trials, 3058 participants, very low quality evidence). The two trials with a positive effect were from the same very high prevalence setting and may not be easily generalised elsewhere. Single dose deworming probably made little or no effect on haemoglobin (mean difference (MD) 0.06 g/dL, 95% CI -0.06 to 0.17, three trials, 1005 participants; moderate evidence), and may have little or no effect on cognition (two trials, low quality evidence). Mulitple dose deworming for all children Over the first year of follow up, multiple doses of deworming drugs given to all children may have little or no effect on weight (MD 0.06 kg, 95% CI -0.17 to 0.30; seven trials, 2460 participants; low quality evidence); haemoglobin, (mean 0.01 g/dL lower; 95% CI 0.14 lower to 0.13 higher; four trials, 807 participants; low quality evidence); cognition (three trials, 30,571 participants, low quality evidence); or school attendance (4% higher attendance; 95% CI -6 to 14; two trials, 30,243 participants; low quality evidence); For time periods beyond a year, there were five trials with weight measures. One cluster-RCT of 3712 children in a low prevalence area showed a large effect (average gain of 0.98 kg), whilst the other four trials did not show an effect, including a cluster-RCT of 27,995 children in a moderate prevalence area (five trials, 37,306 participants; low quality evidence). For height, we are uncertain whether there is an effect of deworming (-0.26 cm; 95% CI -0.84 to 0.31, three trials, 6652 participants; very low quality evidence). Deworming may have little or no effect on haemoglobin (0.00 g/dL, 95%CI -0.08 to 0.08, two trials, 1365 participants, low quality evidence); cognition (two trials, 3720 participants; moderate quality evidence). For school attendance, we are uncertain if there is an effect (mean attendance 5% higher, 95% CI -0.5 to 10.5, approximately 20,000 participants, very low quality evidence). Stratified analysis to seek subgroup effects into low, medium and high helminth endemicity areas did not demonstrate any pattern of effect. In a sensitivity analysis that only included trials with adequate allocation concealment, we detected no significant effects for any primary outcomes. One million children were randomized in a deworming trial from India with mortality as the primary outcome. This was completed in 2005 but the authors have not published the results. Authors' conclusions Screening children for intestinal helminths and then treating infected children appears promising, but the evidence base is small. Routine deworming drugs given to school children has been more extensively investigated, and has not shown benefit on weight in most studies, except for substantial weight changes in three trials conducted 15 years ago or more. Two of these trials were carried out in the same high prevalence setting. For haemoglobin and cognition, community deworming seems to have little or no effect, and the evidence in relation to school attendance, and school performance is generally poor, with no obvious or consistent effect. Our interpretation of this data is that it is probably misleading to justify contemporary deworming programmes based on evidence of consistent benefit on nutrition, haemoglobin, school attendance or school performance as there is simply insufficient reliable information to know whether this is so

Hot corn : life scenes in New York illustrated : including the story of little Katy, Madalina, the rag-picker's daughter, wild Maggie, &c. /

Added title-page, engraved.First edition. Wright II, 2097.Mode of access: Internet