Did the NSA and GCHQ Diminish Our Privacy? What the Control Account Should Say

A standard account of privacy says that it is essentially a kind of control over personal information. Many privacy scholars have argued against this claim by relying on so-called threatened loss cases. In these cases, personal information about an agent is easily available to another person, but not accessed. Critics contend that control accounts have the implausible implication that the privacy of the relevant agent is diminished in threatened loss cases. Recently, threatened loss cases have become important because Edward Snowden’s revelation of how the NSA and GCHQ collected Internet and mobile phone data presents us with a gigantic, real-life threatened loss case. In this paper, I will defend the control account of privacy against the argument that is based on threatened loss cases. I will do so by developing a new version of the control account that implies that the agents’ privacy is not diminished in threatened loss cases

Grounding Responsibility in Appropriate Blame

When confronted with the question of why it is appropriate to morally blame a person for some bad action, it may seem plausible to reply that she is morally responsible for it. Some authors, inspired by Peter Strawson's "Freedom and Resentment," argue, however, that thinking this way is backwards. They believe that a person is morally responsible for some bad action because it would be appropriate to blame her for it. The aims of this paper are to present this account, to highlight some of its important but often overlooked features, and to defend it against pressing objections

Demographic viability of populations of \u3cem\u3eSilene regis\u3c/em\u3e in midwestern prairies: relationships with fire management, genetic variation, geographic location, population size and isolation

We studied the demographic viability of populations of a long-lived iteroparous prairie perennial, Silene regia, in relation to management regimes, population sizes, geographical region (Ohio and Indiana vs. Missouri and Arkansas), degree of isolation and amount of genetic variation. Demographic data were collected from 16 populations for up to 7 years. This species has high survivorship, slow growth, frequent flowering and episodic seedling recruitment. Matrix projection methods were used to summarize population performance with and without recruitment. Median finite rates of increase by population varied from 0.57 to 1.82 and from 0.44 to 0.99, respectively. Populations with the highest rates of increase had been burned. Six of eight populations, for which stochastic modelling predicted persistence for 1000 years, included fire in their management. None of the five populations with predicted 100-year extinction probabilities of 100% was managed for conservation or burned. An intermediate group of three populations with at least 10% probability of extinction between 100 and 1000 years was not managed, but was none the less kept open by mowing and herbicide application. Analysis of composite elasticities showed that growth and fecundity terms were higher for growing (vs. declining) populations and that growth elasticity was higher in burned than unburned populations. Lack of burning shifts the elasticity spectrum from that typical of open habitat herbs (higher growth and fecundity elasticities) to values usually found for closed habitat herbs (higher survival elasticities). In multivariate analyses predicting finite rates of increase (with and without recruitment), fire management and region were the strongest predictors, followed by genetic variation, population size, isolation and interactions of population size and fire, and region and fire. Populations with the highest rates of increase were burned, eastern, more genetically diverse, larger and less isolated. Discrimination of populations with different extinction risks (three classes) was related mainly to fire, genetic variation and region. Most of these conclusions support conservation biology predictions that population viability will be highest in larger, less-isolated, more genetically diverse populations. However, management and geographic trends have overriding roles affecting demographic viability. Habitat fragmentation and genetic depletion have the potential to threaten residual prairie populations of S. regia, but lack of fire management appears to be the primary short-term threat

Modifying the Rebound: It Depends!: Explaining Mobility Behaviour on the Basis of the German Socio-Economic Panel

We address the empirical question to which extent higher fuel efficiency of cars affects additional travel and how this behavioural aspect is modified by additional variables. The data set used to estimate a theoretical model of the rebound effect covers two panel waves, 1998 and 2003, taken from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). To take full advantage of the information in the data available, and to avoid problems due to possible selection effects, we estimated an unbalanced two-wave random effects panel model. Our results suggest that in line with the rebound hypothesis, there is a negative effect of car efficiency on the kilometers driven. That is, the lower the fuel consumption, the larger the driven distance. However, contrasting recent empirical literature about the rebound effect in the transportation sector, this seems to be true only for cars with a consumption of more than roughly eight liters per hundred kilometers. In addition, we find a positive diesel effect, which implies that owning a diesel engined car, has a positive effect on the driven distance. Both effects can be interpreted as support for the rebound hypothesis, although not in a simple linear way. Moreover, it can be shown that some "soft" variables such as certain attitudes towards the environment tend to amplify this non-linear rebound effect. Our results support the general direction of the rebound effect on households travel activities. But because of the remaining political relevance of the rebound effect, they also highlight the importance of accounting for additional behavioural variables which tend to influence individual mobility behaviour. Hence, the classical interpretation of the rebound as a linear effect of advances in fuel economy on individual travel has to be questioned.energy demand, rebound effect, panel data analysis

Dielectric molding apparatus Patent

Dielectric apparatus for heating, fusing, and hardening of organic matrix to form plastic material into shaped produc

Precipitation detector Patent

Precipitation detector and mechanism for stopping and restarting machinery at initiation and cessation of rai

The melting performance of single screw extruders. II

In the previous paper (1) the melting performance of a number of recent screw designs was analyzed, using a rather simple theory. A new screw design was proposed. Here the results of more elaborate calculations, are given in which the influence of the flight clearance and of a shear-thinning temperature dependent viscosity are investigated. The former conclusions are not altered in essence by these effects. Experimental results with a prototype screw are presented, showing that melting capacity is increased. Up to 100 percent increase in throughput is possible in the high RPM range (in comparison with a much longer traditional compression screw), provided that the feed capacity is sufficient. This usually requires the use of a grooved, well-cooled, feed section; the capacity of such a feed section depends, for a given screw geometry, on channel depth and granule dimensions. The melt leaves the melting section at a relatively low temperature. The melting section only melts the material and does not raise, its temperature unnecessarily. A further step towards separating distinct tasks of the extruder by functional screw design has been made

Analyzing the Impact of Cognitive Load in Evaluating Gaze-based Typing

Gaze-based virtual keyboards provide an effective interface for text entry by eye movements. The efficiency and usability of these keyboards have traditionally been evaluated with conventional text entry performance measures such as words per minute, keystrokes per character, backspace usage, etc. However, in comparison to the traditional text entry approaches, gaze-based typing involves natural eye movements that are highly correlated with human brain cognition. Employing eye gaze as an input could lead to excessive mental demand, and in this work we argue the need to include cognitive load as an eye typing evaluation measure. We evaluate three variations of gaze-based virtual keyboards, which implement variable designs in terms of word suggestion positioning. The conventional text entry metrics indicate no significant difference in the performance of the different keyboard designs. However, STFT (Short-time Fourier Transform) based analysis of EEG signals indicate variances in the mental workload of participants while interacting with these designs. Moreover, the EEG analysis provides insights into the user's cognition variation for different typing phases and intervals, which should be considered in order to improve eye typing usability.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, IEEE CBMS 201