Submission to House of Lords Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence

AI creates a new data paradigm. To advance this kind of AI, the role of government can make quite a difference. By processing data AI programs create knowledge i.e. they take over knowledge tasks and even make decisions. To develop and train this kind of AI, large amounts of data are needed in sufficient size and quality. For the creation of this data, the decisions of government are vital. Policy initiatives should: A) ensure that the UK has a strategy for the creation of big datasets in high quality; B) identify sectors in which the creation of those datasets is especially desirable; C) create incentives for businesses to open and share their datasets; D) foster data sovereignty to minimise UK’s algorithmic dependence on U.S. products

Heteroacenes

Issued as final reportNational Science Foundation (U.S

The Role of Bishop in Transforming the Church and the World: Two National Perspectives

Are there differences in how Canadian and United States bishops understand the pre-and post-Vatican II Church, its salvific purpose, unity, authority, collegiality, equality, empowerment, the role of women, and the bishop’s role in transforming the Church and the world? Data originally collected from interviews with five Canadian and seven United States bishops as part of a study (Bunz, 1994) investigating the role of bishop were reassessed to examine this question. Differences and similarities in how Canadian and United States bishops perceived the challenges facing the Church were discerned. It is suggested that cultural variation may account for the different perceptions of Canadian and United States bishops

The Potential for Abiotic Methane in Arctic Gas Hydrates

Most methane enclosed in gas hydrates is biotic in origin, formed by microbial degradation of sedimentary organic matter. Increasingly, there is evidence that substantial gas hydrate may also be sourced from thermogenic decomposition of organic matter and subsequent migration of this gas into the gas hydrate stability zone. In addition, there is a third potential source of methane that does not involve organic matter at all— abiotic methane, which can be generated by magmatic processes or gaswater- rock reactions in the crust and upper mantle

Revisited: Communication Media Use in the Grandparent/Grandchild Relationship

This study extends and replicates some of Harwood’s (2000) earlier research investigating media use in interactions between grandparents and grandchildren. More specifically, this research extends Harwood’s work by adding the technologies of the cell phone, email, and instant messenger to the media he investigated (face-to-face, written documents, and telephone). Such a study allows finding out whether the availability of new technologies has any effect on the grandparent/grandchild relationship. Sixty-six dyads (N = 132) of grandchildren and grandparents participated in the study, completing a questionnaire on basic demographics, media use, and relational quality. Results show usage divides between grandchildren and grandparents, as well as within the grandparent group. The cell phone and face-to-face interaction are used most frequently in the grandparent/grandchild relationship. Technologies such as email or instant messenger are not used much even across the geographic distance they were designed to overcome. Follow up tests to a significant ANOVA did not show significant results for medium type chosen based on who initiates contact. Face-to-face remains the strongest predictor of quality inter-generational relationships, followed by use of the cell phone, the landline phone, and email (in that order). Findings are discussed in light of both media richness theory and the social influence model

Chapter 3 From Big to Democratic Data

Datasets have come to play a significant role in the technical and political realities of our overdeveloped world. This chapter indicates how invisible data processes pose a threat to the health and safety of the global public and argues for the democratic potential of data practices. This potential is set to become even more influential due to the central role data plays for training contemporary AI and technologies such as machine learning. Our case study explores the role patient datasets have for machine learning research in healthcare and shows that publicly available datasets are central to advancing data analysis research; they can act as a counterbalance to datasets full of absences, biases, and disconnects that often corrupt the quality of data. Given this, we argue for the introduction of ‘data solidarity’ as a principle of data governance and an effective critical data practice that focuses on the democratic (instead of economic) potential of data; a potential that is far too often overlooked

Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things

"Through algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI), objects and digital services now demonstrate new skills they did not have before, right up to replacing human activity through pre-programming or by making their own decisions. As part of the internet of things, AI applications are already widely used today, for example in language processing, image recognition and the tracking and processing of data. This policy brief illustrates the potential negative and positive impacts of AI and reviews related policy strategies adopted by the UK, US, EU, as well as Canada and China. Based on an ethical approach that considers the role of AI from a democratic perspective and considering the public interest, the authors make policy recommendations that help to strengthen the positive impact of AI and to mitigate its negative consequences.

4,4′-[2,5-Bis(dodec­yloxy)-p-phenyl­ene]bis­(2-methyl­but-3-yn-2-ol)

In the title compound, C40H66O4, the C and O atoms of the propinyl and dodecoxyl substituents are nearly coplanar with the benzene ring, 1.735 (6), 8.804 (1), 8.786 (1) and 9.577 (3)°, respectively. In the crystal, mol­ecules are connected by inter­molecular O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds