Interview with Caspar Bowden: Tracing the (Mis)steps to the PRISM Revelation

Is the PRISM revelation as surprising as the news coverage makes it seem? Independent privacy researcher and advocate Caspar Bowden previously predicted of PRISM-like surveillance systems in a 2012 Report to the European Parliament. Here, in an interview with LSE’s Alexandra Kulikova, the former Microsoft Chief Privacy Adviser reflects on how the mishandling of privacy by governments and media has disrupted public engagement with the privacy debate

Agent modelling of cluster formation processes in regional economic systems

The subject matter of this research is the processes of the spontaneous clustering in the regional economy. The purpose is the development and approbation of the modeling algorithm of these processes. The hypothesis: the processes of spontaneous clustering in the social and economic environment are supposed to proceed not linearly, but intermittently. The following methods are applied: agent imitating modeling with an application of FOREL and k-means algorithms. The modeling algorithm is realized in the Python 3 programming language. The course regularities of clustering processes in the region are revealed: 1) the clustering processes are intensifying, the production uniformity is increasing; 2) the increase of the level of production uniformity leads to the leveling of customer behavior; 3) the producers of high-differentiated production reduce the level of its differentiation or leave the cluster; 4) the stages of steady functioning are illustrative for clustering processes, their change is followed with arising of bifurcation points; 5) the activation of clustering processes in regional economy leads to the revenue increase of the cluster participants, each of producers and of consumers, and to the growth of synergetic effect values. These results testify the nonlinearity of processes of clustering and ambiguity of their effects. The following conclusions have been drawn: 1) a modeling of the processes of spontaneous clustering in regional economy has showed that they proceed not linearly, a steady progressive development is followed with leaps; 2) the clustering of regional economy leads to the growth of the efficiency indicators of activities of cluster-concerned entities; 3) initiation and activation of the clustering processes requires a certain environment

One-step condensed forms for square-root maximum correntropy criterion Kalman filtering

This paper suggests a few novel Cholesky-based square-root algorithms for the maximum correntropy criterion Kalman filtering. In contrast to the previously obtained results, new algorithms are developed in the so-called {\it condensed} form that corresponds to the {\it a priori} filtering. Square-root filter implementations are known to possess a better conditioning and improved numerical robustness when solving ill-conditioned estimation problems. Additionally, the new algorithms permit easier propagation of the state estimate and do not require a back-substitution for computing the estimate. Performance of novel filtering methods is examined by using a fourth order benchmark navigation system example