Risk Analysis Commons^™

Material Flow Analysis As A Decision Supporting Tool For Faecal Sludge Resource Recovery: Mathematical Formulation And Quantification, Isabela Thomas Mkude

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

In this work, a conceptual framework for faecal sludge (FS) management and resource recovery in Dar es Salaam city was developed. Material Flow Analysis (MFA) approach was used to assess and quantify the current materials and nutrients to support on decisions for nutrient recovery and minimize environmental pollution in three unplanned settlements of Manzese, Keko and Kipawa in Dar es Salaam city. Nitrogen and Phosphorus were chosen as indicators for the evaluation of the process. The results showed that about 75% of the Dar es Salaam city population relies on pit latrines and 15% connected to septic tanks, translating to …

Assessment Of Surface Water Resources In Great Ruaha River Sub-Basin Tanzania: Application Of Weap Model For Water Allocation And Utilization Impacts Analysis, Deogratias Mulungu

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

The Great Ruaha River (GRR) sub-basin is one of the most important waterways in Tanzania as it supports important economic activities. The sub-basin is progressively faced with an inevitable situation of increasing water demand among competing users while the quantity and quality of water is diminishing. The focus of this study was to assess allocation of existing (2012) and future (up to 2025) quantities of surface water in the GRR sub-basin with consideration of priorities given in the Tanzania Water Resources Management Act, 2009 in the order: domestic, environment, agriculture, livestock and non-domestic. Simulation of water allocation scenarios of irrigation …

Wrack Lines Volume 19, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2019, Nancy Balcom, Syma Ebbin, David Gregorio, Richard Telford, Judy Benson

Wrack Lines

Issue theme is: "Making Connections: As the Climate Changes, People and Nature Intertwine in New Ways." Articles include: "As More Roads Become Rivers, Communities Search for Solutions;" "Solving an Engineering Conundrum: As Coastal Homes Get Elevated, New Research Looks at Whether Vulnerability to Wind Damage Is Increasing;" "Along the Coast, Residents Consider How to Heed Sandy's Warning of What's to Come;" "All Rivers, All Lives Run to the Sea," about the intersection of waterways and the world of nature writer Edwin Way Teale; and "Crosscurrents: Connecticut Sea Grant's Retrospective Exhibition Makes Waves," about reaching new audiences and building bridges with …

Computer Vision Machine Learning And Future-Oriented Ethics, Abagayle Lee Blank

Honors Projects

Computer Vision Machine Learning (CVML) in the application of facial recognition is currently being researched, developed, and deployed across the world. It is of interest to governments, technology companies, and consumers. However, fundamental issues remain related to human rights, error rates, and bias. These issues have the potential to create societal backlash towards the technology which could limit its benefits as well as harm people in the process. To develop facial recognition technology that will be beneficial to society in and beyond the next decade, society must put ethics at the forefront. Drawing on AI4People’s adaption of bioethics for AI, …

Methods For Using Manpower To Assess Usaf Strategic Risk, Calvin J. Bradshaw Iii

Theses and Dissertations

With limited personnel resource funding availability, senior US Air Force (USAF) decision makers struggle to base enterprise resource allocation from rigorous analytical traceability. There are over 240 career fields in the USAF spanning 12 enterprises. Each enterprise develops annual risk assessments by distinctive core capabilities. A core capability (e.g. Research and Development) is an enabling function necessary for the USAF to perform its mission as part of the Department of Defense (DOD). Assessing risk at the core capability is a good start to assessing risk, but is still not comprehensiveness enough. One of the twelve enterprises has linked its task …

The Performance Cost Of Security, Lucy R. Bowen

Master's Theses

Historically, performance has been the most important feature when optimizing computer hardware. Modern processors are so highly optimized that every cycle of computation time matters. However, this practice of optimizing for performance at all costs has been called into question by new microarchitectural attacks, e.g. Meltdown and Spectre. Microarchitectural attacks exploit the effects of microarchitectural components or optimizations in order to leak data to an attacker. These attacks have caused processor manufacturers to introduce performance impacting mitigations in both software and silicon.

To investigate the performance impact of the various mitigations, a test suite of forty-seven different tests was created. …

Responding To Some Challenges Posed By The Re-Identification Of Anonymized Personal Data, Herman T. Tavani, Frances S. Grodzinsky

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

In this paper, we examine a cluster of ethical controversies generated by the re-identification of anonymized personal data in the context of big data analytics, with particular attention to the implications for personal privacy. Our paper is organized into two main parts. Part One examines some ethical problems involving re-identification of personally identifiable information (PII) in large data sets. Part Two begins with a brief description of Moor and Weckert’s Dynamic Ethics (DE) and Nissenbaum’s Contextual Integrity (CI) Frameworks. We then investigate whether these frameworks, used together, can provide us with a more robust scheme for analyzing privacy concerns that …

Difference Between Algorithmic Processing And The Process Of Lifeworld (Lebenswelt), Domenico Schneider

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

The following article compares the temporality of the life-world with the digital processing. The temporality of the life-world is determined to be stretched and spontaneous. The temporality of the digital is given by discrete step-by-step points of time. Most ethical issues can be traced back to a mismatch of these two ways of processing. This creates a foundation for the ethics of the digital processing. Methodologically, phenomenological considerations are merged with media-philosophical considerations in the article.

A Ulysses Pact With Artificial Systems. How To Deliberately Change The Objective Spirit With Cultured Ai, Bruno Gransche

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

The article introduces a concept of cultured technology, i.e. intelligent systems capable of interacting with humans and showing (or simulating) manners, of following customs and of socio-sensitive considerations. Such technologies might, when deployed on a large scale, influence and change the realm of human customs, traditions, standards of acceptable behavior, etc. This realm is known as the "objective spirit" (Hegel), which usually is thought of as being historically changing but not subject to deliberate human design. The article investigates the question of whether the purposeful design of interactive technologies (as cultured technologies) could enable us to shape modes of …

A Metacognitive Approach To Trust And A Case Study: Artificial Agency, Ioan Muntean

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

Trust is defined as a belief of a human H (`the trustor') about the ability of an agent A (the `trustee') to perform future action(s). We adopt here dispositionalism and internalism about trust: H trusts A iff A has some internal dispositions as competences. The dispositional competences of A are high-level metacognitive requirements, in the line of a naturalized virtue epistemology. (Sosa, Carter) We advance a Bayesian model of two (i) confidence in the decision and (ii) model uncertainty. To trust A, H demands A to be self-assertive about confidence and able to self-correct its own models. In the Bayesian …

Modeling The Economic Machine Using Bayesian Inference And Statistical Networks, And Optimal Portfolio Construction Using Operations Research, Richard Yang

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

In this paper, we propose a network-based model to attempt to connect modern macroeconomic theory with real world economic observations and trends. We find that by extending macroeconomic theory with credit leveraging/deleveraging thresholds, we are able to explain economic cycles in addition to long-term growth. Furthermore, we specifically explore the growth-inflation view of the macro economy as a basis for optimal portfolio construction and efficient asset trading. Connecting our network-based macroeconomic model and our optimal portfolio construction algorithm, we create a novel macroeconomic asset-trading framework.

Keeping Anonymity At The Consumer Behavior On The Internet: Proof Of Sacrifice, Sachio Horie

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

The evolution of the Internet and AI technology has made it possible for the government and the businesses to keep track of their personal lives. GAFA continues to collect information unintended by the individuals. It is a threat that our privacy is violated in this way. In order to solute such problems, it is important to consider a mechanism that enables us to be peaceful lives while protecting privacy in the Internet society.

This paper focuses on the consumption behavior on the Internet and addresses anonymity. We consider some network protocols that enable sustainable consensus by combining anonymity methods such …

Legal And Technical Issues For Text And Data Mining In Greece, Maria Kanellopoulou - Botti, Marinos Papadopoulos, Christos Zampakolas, Paraskevi Ganatsiou

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

Web harvesting and archiving pertains to the processes of collecting from the web and archiving of works that reside on the Web. Web harvesting and archiving is one of the most attractive applications for libraries which plan ahead for their future operation. When works retrieved from the Web are turned into archived and documented material to be found in a library, the amount of works that can be found in said library can be far greater than the number of works harvested from the Web. The proposed participation in the 2019 CEPE Conference aims at presenting certain issues related to …

On The Responsibility For Uses Of Downstream Software, Marty J. Wolf, Keith W. Miller, Frances S. Grodzinsky

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

In this paper we explore an issue that is different from whether developers are responsible for the direct impact of the software they write. We examine, instead, in what ways, and to what degree, developers are responsible for the way their software is used “downstream.” We review some key scholarship analyzing responsibility in computing ethics, including some recent work by Floridi. We use an adaptation of a mechanism developed by Floridi to argue that there are features of software that can be used as guides to better distinguish situations where a software developer might share in responsibility for the software’s …

Understanding The Privacy Methods, Implications, And Challenges Of Educational Data Mining., Tyler Blanco, Liam Smith

CURCE Annual Undergraduate Conference

Studies on educational data mining have massively advanced the analytical understanding of student learning, outcome predictions, student modeling, and better evaluation. While the information retrieved can improve educational outcomes, such studies must not break the wall of trust or compromise student privacy. To this end, it’s imperative to understand the methods of how privacy is ensured in the field of educational data mining and learning analytics, the limitations of these strategies, the complications that may follow, and the possible resolutions. In this project, we take a systematic approach to review studies in the educational data mining field. Initially, we examine …

Analysis Of Computer Audit Data To Create Indicators Of Compromise For Intrusion Detection, Steven Millett, Michael Toolin, Justin Bates

SMU Data Science Review

Network security systems are designed to identify and, if possible, prevent unauthorized access to computer and network resources. Today most network security systems consist of hardware and software components that work in conjunction with one another to present a layered line of defense against unauthorized intrusions. Software provides user interactive layers such as password authentication, and system level layers for monitoring network activity. This paper examines an application monitoring network traffic that attempts to identify Indicators of Compromise (IOC) by extracting patterns in the network traffic which likely corresponds to unauthorized access. Typical network log data and construct indicators are …

A Unified Risk-Based Framework For Assessing Sustainability And Resiliency Of Civil Infrastructure, Thomas Adam Robbins

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

As of February 2019, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has reported since 1880 the average global temperature has increased 1°C, with the warmest year on record being 2016. As the years continue to pass, it is becoming more evident that climate change is occurring, which is known to be a catalyst for climatic weather events. Statistically speaking, these events are more prevalent, and catastrophic exemplified as hurricanes, earthquakes, flooding, and fires. In addition to the increase of potentially catastrophic events, society as a whole has become more conscientious in the use and preservation of natural resources, waste generation, …

Incentivizing Cyber Security Investment In The Power Sector Using An Extended Cyber Insurance Framework, Jack P. Rosson, Mason J. Rice, Juan Lopez Jr., R. David Fass

Faculty Publications

Collaboration between the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and public-sector partners has revealed that a dearth of cyber-incident data combined with the unpredictability of cyber attacks have contributed to a shortfall in first-party cyber insurance protection in the critical infrastructure community. This research explores the foundations of insurance theory and adopts behavioral manipulation methods to incentivize cyber-security investment. We validate the model by applying power industry performance data from 2013-2015 to assess risk facing the industry. Results show that the model can successfully discriminate between individual power companies as well as geographic regions on the basis of risk …

Seismic Performance Of Earth Slopes Subjected To Earthquake Mainshock – Aftershock Sequences, Alisha Khanal

Civil Engineering Theses

Mainshocks are usually followed by aftershocks. Aftershocks continue over a period of time with a decreasing frequency and there is not sufficient time for repair and retrofit between a mainshock – aftershock sequence. Typically, aftershocks are smaller in magnitude; however, aftershock ground motion characteristics such as the intensity and duration can be greater than the mainshock due to the changes in the earthquake mechanism and location with respect to the site. The seismic performance of slopes is typically evaluated based on the sliding displacement predicted to occur along a critical sliding surface. Various empirical models are available that predict sliding …

Hazard And Operability Analysis Of An Ethylene Oxide Production Plant, Samantha Ciricillo

Senior Theses

The purpose of this work was to evaluate potential hazards and failures as part of the design and economic analysis for a chemical plant that would produce 150,000 tons of ethylene oxide per year. The Hazard and Operability (HAZOP) method of analysis was used to accomplish this goal. This method of hazard analysis involves brainstorming potential errors in a system by examining each element of each process unit in full detail. This project was focused on the reactor unit because the reactor has several important parameters that could fail, resulting in safety issues within the system. Input for this analysis …