A Framework for Analyzing and Comparing Privacy States

This article develops a framework for analyzing and comparing privacy and privacy protections across (inter alia) time, place, and polity and for examining factors that affect privacy and privacy protection. This framework provides a method to describe precisely aspects of privacy and context and a flexible vocabulary and notation for such descriptions and comparisons. Moreover, it links philosophical and conceptual work on privacy to social science and policy work and accommodates different conceptions of the nature and value of privacy. The article begins with an outline of the framework. It then refines the view by describing a hypothetical application. Finally, it applies the framework to a real‐world privacy issue—campaign finance disclosure laws in the United States and France. The article concludes with an argument that the framework offers important advantages to privacy scholarship and for privacy policy makers

Virtual numbers for virtual machines?

Knowing the number of virtual machines (VMs) that a cloud physical hardware can (further) support is critical as it has implications on provisioning and hardware procurement. However, current methods for estimating the maximum number of VMs possible on a given hardware is usually the ratio of the specifications of a VM to the underlying cloud hardware’s specifications. Such naive and linear estimation methods mostly yield impractical limits as to how many VMs the hardware can actually support. It was found that if we base on the naive division method, user experience on VMs at those limits would be severely degraded. In this paper, we demonstrate through experimental results, the significant gap between the limits derived using the estimation method mentioned above and the actual situation. We believe for a more practicable estimation of the limits of the underlying infrastructure

Resource‐based learning strategies: Implications for students and institutions

This paper reports some findings from a project in implementing resource‐based learning in economics, and identifies some implications for students and institutions. These include student responses to a mid‐semester evaluation and the views of the project team. The latter have been informed by action research which sought to recognize students’ individual differences, employ active learning methods and, above all, integrate IT into the curriculum. While innovative strategies are clearly welcomed, students show strong attachment to some traditional methods. Most of those who suggested changes to the range of activities asked for reinstatement of at least some lectures, generally as additions to existing activities. Implications include the need for students and staff to acquire a wide range of new skills, for large‐scale curriculum review if new learning technologies are to be fully integrated, and the need to acknowledge that, given student and staff perceptions of change, the process may be long and costly

Multi-bot Easy Control Hierarchy

The goal of our project is to create a software architecture that makes it possible to easily control a multi-robot system, as well as seamlessly change control modes during operation. The different control schemes first include the ability to implement on-board and off-board controllers. Second, the commands can specify either actuator level, vehicle level, or fleet level behavior. Finally, motion can be specified by giving a waypoint and time constraint, a velocity and heading, or a throttle and angle. Our code is abstracted so that any type of robot - ranging from ones that use a differential drive set up, to three-wheeled holonomic platforms, to quadcopters - can be added to the system by simply writing drivers that interface with the hardware used and by implementing math packages that do the required calculations. Our team has successfully demonstrated piloting a single robots while switching between waypoint navigation and a joystick controller. In addition, we have demonstrated the synchronized control of two robots using joystick control. Future work includes implementing a more robust cluster control, including off-board functionality, and incorporating our architecture into different types of robots

The Right to Kill in Cold Blood: Does the Death Penalty Violate Human Rights

The essence of the argument is this: all punishment must be inflicted in cold blood; whatever damage we do to others not in cold blood is not punishment but self-defense or revenge; what we have a right to inflict in cold blood is a question of the rules of just social cooperation and especially the justice of the sanctions required to sustain those rules; it is here argued that the fundamental principle is that we may inflict whatever punishment is necessary to deter wrongdoing and not disproportionate to the offence; I do not dismiss \u27pure\u27 retribution as a goal of punishment, but I do not discuss it here. I invoke only a diluted concept of retribution in the form of the concept of a \u27proportionate\u27 response to crime. What I claim is that the infliction of death is not a violation of the human rights of a convicted felon under appropriate conditions, and in the converse that individuals and society as a whole have the right to inflict such a sentence, but I am also going to argue that this has moral force as a defense of the death penalty only if many other rights are in place. Finally, the essay turns to the question of how we should discuss the penalty of death in particular, and I invoke the shade of Joseph de Maistre for the purpose