Digital Commons Network^™

Speech Regulation By Algorithm, Enrique Armijo

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

The rapid convergence of speech and technology on social media platforms means it is likely the case that, either now or soon, more expressive activity will be regulated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) than by any legislature, regulator, or other government entity. Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly told Congress and other audiences that AI is the key to resolving Facebook's content moderation challenges, envisioning a moderation regime where algorithms detect and take down speech infringing Facebook's Community Standards ex ante, that is, prior to its public posting and before it reaches other users. According to Zuckerberg, this would eventually replace its initial …

Human Rights Due Diligence, Joanna Kulesza

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Due diligence is a well-recognized, deliberately flexible standard in international law. It has been introduced to complement the system of state responsibility and the international liability framework of commitments. The latter has provided more detail to the understanding of due diligence. Together, these two systems allow for a comprehensive reading and implementation of due diligence in international law.

Two international legal regimes dictate due diligence requirements: the law on international liability and that of the law of state responsibility. These two regimes have been the focus of the United Nations' (UN) International Law Commission (ILC) since 1947, resulting in two …

"A Novel And Controversial Technology." Artificial Face Recognition, Privacy Protection, And Algorithm Bias In Europe, Andrea Pin

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

R (Bridges) v. Chief Constable of South Wales Police's Court of Appeals ruling... showcases the variety and the thickness of the legal, ethical, and political considerations that lie underneath the deployment of [Artificial Face Recognition]-based police tools and its ramification within Europe and beyond. More broadly, the topic of "[f]acial recognition technologies provide[s] a useful case study of the complex and unpredictable ways that norms of procedural fairness, equality, and privacy interact when the state deploys machine-learning tools to draw inferences from otherwise unilluminating data." This Article uses Bridges as a proxy to sketch out the main legal issues …

Seeking A Safe Harbor In A Widening Sea: Unpacking The Schrems Saga And What It Means For Transatlantic Relations And Global Cybersecurity, Scott J. Shackelford

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

The Article is structured as follows. Part I examines Schrems I (Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner) and the fall of the Safe Harbor regime. Part II analyzes Schrems II (Data Protection Commissioner v. Facebook & Max Schrems) along with the rise and fall of Privacy Shield. Part III focuses on opportunities to bridge the data governance divide and present a united front to help ensure a free, open, interoperable, secure, and resilient vision for cyberspace.

This abstract has been adapted from the author's introduction.

If You Think Ai Won't Eclipse Humanity, You're Probably Just A Human, Gary D. Brown

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Building machines that can replicate human thinking and behavior has fascinated people for hundreds of years. Stories about robots date from ancient history through da Vinci to the present. Whether designed to save labor or lives, to provide companionship or protection, loyal, capable, productive machines are a dream of humanity.

The modern manifestation of this interest in using human-like technology to advance social interests is artificial intelligence (AI). This is a paper about what that interest in AI means and how it might develop in the world of national security.

This abstract has been adapted from the author's introduction.

Ridden With Controversy: Applying The Public Forum Doctrine To Public Transit Advertising, Remy T. B. Oliver

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Note tackles the application of the First Amendment to public transit advertising. Under the current judicial framework, the First Amendment is filtered through the "public forum doctrine" when discussing the rights of citizens to utilize government property for expressive purposes. The Note will argue that public transit advertising constitutes a "designated public forum" in most (if not all) cases. That characterization would force any content-based restrictions to be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest. The natural result is a significant expansion of access to public transit advertising by interested parties. If the U.S. Supreme Court were to …

Facing Injustice: How Face Recognition Technology May Increase The Incidence Of Misidentifications And Wrongful Convictions, Laura Moy

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Part I of this Article explains how face recognition is used in conjunction with eyewitness identification in the law enforcement context. Part II explores how and why the growing use of face recognition technology may increase, rather than decrease, misidentifications and therefore wrongful convictions. Part III recommends policy changes that should be considered, including some of the reforms to eyewitness identification procedures that have been advanced by others.

This abstract has been adapted from the author's introduction.

Docket Selection And Judicial Responsiveness: The Use Of Ai In The Colombian Constitutional Court, Pablo Rueda Saiz

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article addresses some of the limitations of AI as a tool to preselect a long or shortlist of cases for a court at the apex of the judicial system to review. It focuses on the Colombian Constitutional Court, as an example of a court at the apex of the judicial system that has been historically responsive to claims for fundamental rights. Docket selection is an example of a classification problem using supervised learning, in which a machine groups data according to preestablished characteristics.

This Article draws from two different bodies of literature to analyze the consequences of using AI …

Ballots In An Unfamiliar Language And Other Things That Make No Sense: Interpreting How The Voting Rights Act Undermines Constitutional Rights For Voters With Limited English Proficiency, Abigail Hylton

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Note will argue that the current federal scheme for determining the baseline resources that a state must provide to voters with limited English proficiency is unconstitutional. Specifically, the Voting Rights Act neglects to require adequate translation and interpretation services for many voters with limited English proficiency. Such failure to adequately support this group of citizens throughout the election process effectively excludes them from the democratic process and deprives them of their constitutional right to vote. Whether this group of voters has access to translated materials currently hinges on the language they speak, their nationality, and their geographic location; the …

Nhtsa Up In The Clouds: The Formal Recall Process & Over-The-Air Software Updates, Emma Himes

Michigan Technology Law Review

Software updates are pushed to vehicles “over-the-air” (OTA) with increasing frequency as they reduce costs of visiting dealerships and auto shops to receive maintenance. These updates, pushed from the cloud, have been used to remedy safety defects in vehicles and improve software controlling all aspects of vehicles from steering to rearview mirrors. Remedies of vehicle safety defects are overseen by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA); however, because many OTA software updates do not remedy issues officially deemed safety defects, they are pushed straight from the manufacturer to drivers with little government oversight or transparency. NHTSA’s recall process was …

The Role Of A-Layer In Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid (Pufa)-Mediated Effects On Aeromonas Salmonicida Subsp. Salmonicida, Allen Lin

Honors Theses

Aeromonas salmonicida subsp. salmonicida is a Gram-negative bacterium that infects salmonids and non-salmonids worldwide leading to an infection known as furunculosis, which is characterized by skin lesions and hemorrhages of the fish epidermis. This infection is carried out by a A+ (virulent strain) of A. salmonicida containing an important virulent factor known as the A-layer, which is a 2D paracrystalline structure that binds to the basement membrane and functions to promote adherence to host membranes and resistance to host defense. The purpose of this study was to examine the ability of the A+ A. salmonicida to incorporate exogenous fatty acids …

Gut Permeability And Osteoarthritis, Towards A Mechanistic Understanding Of The Pathogenesis: A Systematic Review, Giorgio Guido, Guido Ausenda, Veronica Iascone, Emanuele Chisari

Rothman Institute Papers

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common condition affecting human joints. Along with mechanical and genetic factors, low-grade inflammation is increasingly supported as a causal factor in the development of OA. Gut microbiota and intestinal permeability, via the disruption of tight junction competency, are proposed to explain a gut-joint axis through the interaction with the host immune system. Since previous studies and methods have underestimated the role of the gut-joint axis in OA and have only focussed on the characterisation of microbiota phenotypes, this systematic review aims to appraise the current evidence concerning the influence of gut permeability in the pathogenesis …

Testing The Relationship Between Confidence And Effort: A Behavioral Finance Perspective On The Problem Of Financial Literacy, Louie Bernard A. Jacob, Miguel Angelo S. Rabago, Hans Erickson A. Tan, Lawrence B. Dacuycuy, Gerardo L. Largoza, Maria Fe Carmen L. Dabbay

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

This experimental study tested the relationship between confidence and effort with the ultimate objective of discovering how these factors may influence financial literacy. This was done through a modified version of a slider test and ball allocation task. The population consisted of 85 random participants who were primarily approached through social media. A simple OLS regression, along with robustness checks, namely the Tobit model and instrumental variable (IV) regression model using Tobit estimators, were utilized to confirm the causal relationship between confidence and effort.

Massachusetts Community Mediation Center Grant Program: Fiscal Year 2021 Report & Evaluation, Massachusetts Office Of Public Collaboration, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration Publications

The state of Massachusetts appropriated $2,700,000 in Fiscal Year 2021 for the Community Mediation Center Grant Program to support its endeavors to expand utilization of community mediation across the state. The state’s $2.7 million investment in the program effectively underwrote center initiatives to preserve the option of community mediation services for meeting communities’ conflict resolution needs. Ultimately, Massachusetts as a whole benefited from the Grant Program in FY 2021 by virtue of the estimated $14 million return on the state’s investment in the program.

Modeling Cherenkov Light Detection Timing For The Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System, Keilan Finn Ramirez

Physics

The Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) is an array of four 12-meter telescopes which use the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Technique to conduct high-energy gamma-ray astronomy. VERITAS detects magnitude and location information associated with Cherenkov light, and uses this information to indirectly observe gamma-rays through a software reconstruction process. VERITAS also records timing information corresponding to Cherenkov light detection, and this additional information could theoretically be incorporated into the reconstruction process to improve the accuracy of gamma-ray observations. The first step to including timing information is to understand when Cherenkov light detection would be expected from a known …

Linking Creativity And False Memory: Common Consequences Of A Flexible Memory System, Preston P. Thakral, Aleea L. Devitt, Nadia M. Brashier, Daniel L. Schacter

Psychology: Faculty Publications

Episodic retrieval plays a functional-adaptive role in supporting divergent thinking, the ability to creatively combine different pieces of information. However, the same constructive memory process that provides a functional-adaptive benefit can also leave memory prone to error. In two experiments, we employed an individual differences approach to examine the relationship between different forms of creative thinking (divergent and convergent thinking) and false memory generation in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm. In Experiment 1, and replicating prior findings, false recognition was significantly predicted by convergent thinking performance. Critically, we also observed a novel predictive relationship between false recognition and quantitative metrics of divergent …

Understanding The African American Male Student Experience Of Being Diagnosed With Emotional Disturbance Through The Use Of Counter-Storytelling, Sara Ordaz

Doctoral Dissertations

In the U.S. educational system, it is too common to see African American males overrepresented in special education classrooms, including segregated special education settings. African American males continuously experience disproportionate representation and placement in special education, especially under the label of ED (Harry & Anderson, 1994). Twice as many African American students in the United States are receiving services for Emotional Disturbance than their White counterparts.

Students who are labeled with ED have the lowest educational outcomes as well as lower success rates in life than any other disability classification (Merrrell & Walker, 2004). The consequences of the ED label …

Cattle Industry Funding Scheme Annual Report 2020/2021, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia

Biosecurity published reports

In June 2010 the Cattle Industry Funding Scheme (IFS) was introduced to address biosecurity threats relevant to the Western Australian (WA) cattle industry. The Scheme was established under the Biosecurity and Agriculture Management Act 2007 to enable cattle producers to identify the pest and disease priorities at a whole-of-industry level and to raise funds for activities to address these priorities.

There are currently three Industry Funding Schemes in operation. In addition to the Cattle IFS, there is a Sheep and Goat IFS and a Grains, Seeds and Hay IFS. The three IFSs operate in a similar manner.

The purpose of …

A Comprehensive Analysis Of Reward Function For Adaptive Traffic Signal Control, Abu Rafe Md Jamil, Naushin Nower

Knowledge Engineering and Data Science

Adaptive traffic control systems (ATCS) can play an essential role in reducing traffic congestion in urban areas. The main challenge for ATSC is to determine the proper signal timing. Recently, Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) has been used to determine proper signal timing. However, the success of the DRL algorithm depends on the appropriate reward function design. There exist various reward functions for ATSC in the existing research. This research presents a comprehensive analysis of the widely used reward function. The pros and cons of various reward algorithms were discussed, and experimental analysis shows that the multi-objective reward function enhances the …

Recognition Of Handwritten Javanese Script Using Backpropagation With Zoning Feature Extraction, Anik Nur Handayani, Heru Wahyu Herwanto, Katya Lindi Chandrika, Kohei Arai

Knowledge Engineering and Data Science

Backpropagation is part of supervised learning, in which the training process requires a target. The resulting error is transmitted back to the units below in its training process. Backpropagation can solve complicated problems because it consumes less memory than other algorithms. In addition, it also can produce solutions with a low error rate while executing less time. In image pattern recognition, backpropagation can be utilized for cultural preservation in many places worldwide, including Indonesia. It is used to recognize picture patterns in Javanese script writings. This study concluded that feature extraction approaches, zoning, and backpropagation could be utilized to distinguish …

A Comparative Study Of Machine Learning-Based Approach For Network Traffic Classification, Kien Trang, An Hoang Nguyen

Knowledge Engineering and Data Science

Internet usage has increased rapidly and become an essential part of human life, corresponding to the rapid development of network infrastructure in recent years. Thus, protecting users’ confidential information when joining the global network becomes one of the most significant considerations. Even though multiple encryption algorithms and techniques have been applied in different parties, including internet providers, and web hosting, this situation also allows the hacker to attack the network system anonymously. Therefore, the significance of classifying network data streams to improve network system quality and security is attracting increasing study interests. This work introduces a machine learning-based approach to …

Early Prediction Of Hate Speech Propagation, Ken-Yu Lin, Roy Ka-Wei Lee, Wei Gao, Wen-Chih Peng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Online hate speech has disrupted the social connectedness in online communities and raises public safety concerns in our societies. Motivated by this rising issue, researchers have developed many machine learning and deep learning methods to detect hate speech in social media automatically. However, most of the existing automated solutions have focused on detecting hate speech in a single post, neglecting the network and information propagation effects of social media platforms. Ideally, the content moderators would want to identify the hateful posts and monitor posts and threads that are likely to induce hate. This paper aims to address this research gap …

Efficient Reinforcement Learning In Resource Allocation Problems Through Permutation Invariant Multi-Task Learning, Desmond Cai, Shiau Hong Lim, Laura Wynter

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

One of the main challenges in real-world reinforcement learning is to learn successfully from limited training samples. We show that in certain settings, the available data can be dramatically increased through a form of multi-task learning, by exploiting an invariance property in the tasks. We provide a theoretical performance bound for the gain in sample efficiency under this setting. This motivates a new approach to multi-task learning, which involves the design of an appropriate neural network architecture and a prioritized task-sampling strategy. We demonstrate empirically the effectiveness of the proposed approach on two real-world sequential resource allocation tasks where this …

Healing Rites : A Performance Autoethnography, Auryn Rotten

Postgraduate

The following is an exegesis that accompanies a performance in film. Together they reveal an autoethnographic journey of a researcher-filmmaker that contributes to the open-ended examination of the human experience through the language of art. The study explores a disruptive, trauma-informed healing ritual of “wounding while healing”. The artistic and scholarly practice is guided by the theoretical principles of art-based research throughout the process. Centring around the lived experience of the researcher as a survivor of sexual assault; the knowledge generated through the work is motivated by a political and personal desire to provoke change. Correspondingly, the film performance interrupts …

Moxie : We Just Wanna Play Games, Chris Stojkos

Postgraduate

Hegemonic geek masculinity dominates video games. It has contributed to the formation of a toxic culture that is now widely perceived to consistently and aggressively prevent women and non-binary gamers from participating as equals. Gaming has historically resisted progressive change, and the industry continues to produce content for the assumed heterosexual male target audience. In more recent years, steps have been taken towards recognising these entrenched issues and implementing change, such as improving gender representation in games, however attempts are inconsistent, and other aspects of the culture are slow to adapt. The gap between the number of male, female, and …

Automated Doubt Identification From Informal Reflections Through Hybrid Sentic Patterns And Machine Learning Approach, Siaw Ling Lo, Kar Way Tan, Eng Lieh Ouh

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Do my students understand? The question that lingers in every instructor’s mind after each lesson. With the focus on learner-centered pedagogy, is it feasible to provide timely and relevant guidance to individual learners according to their levels of understanding? One of the options available is to collect reflections from learners after each lesson to extract relevant feedback so that doubts or questions can be addressed in a timely manner. In this paper, we derived a hybrid approach that leverages a novel Doubt Sentic Pattern Detection (SPD) algorithm and a machine learning model to automate the identification of doubts from students’ …

Imon: Appearance-Based Gaze Tracking System On Mobile Devices, Sinh Huynh, Rajesh Krishna Balan, Jeonggil Ko

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Gaze tracking is a key building block used in many mobile applications including entertainment, personal productivity, accessibility, medical diagnosis, and visual attention monitoring. In this paper, we present iMon, an appearance-based gaze tracking system that is both designed for use on mobile phones and has significantly greater accuracy compared to prior state-of-the-art solutions. iMon achieves this by comprehensively considering the gaze estimation pipeline and then overcoming three different sources of errors. First, instead of assuming that the user's gaze is fixed to a single 2D coordinate, we construct each gaze label using a probabilistic 2D heatmap gaze representation input to …

Bundled Earnings Guidance And Analysts' Forecast Revisions, Charles Hsu, Rencheng Wang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Bundling managerial earnings guidance with quarterly earnings announcements (EAs) has become an increasingly common practice. This study investigates the impact of bundled guidance on analysts' forecast revisions. Our findings indicate that analysts respond more to bundled guidance than non-bundled guidance. This effect increases with analysts' time pressure and cognitive constraints around the EA. Analysts' revisions also incorporate more of the bundled management guidance when accompanied by additional information, such as conference calls. We further find that analysts revise their forecasts more quickly following bundled guidance than non-bundled guidance. Together, these findings are consistent with the notion that analysts place more …

The Impact Of The Ifrs 9 Expected Loss Approach On Accounting Conservatism, Clarence Goh, Chu Yeong Lim, Kevin Ow Yong

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using an experimental setting, this paper examines the impact of the International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS 9) expected credit loss (ECL) approach on accounting conservatism. The ECL approach enables banks to incorporate loan loss provisions (LLP) on a timelier basis and help bank regulators anticipate weaknesses in banks’ loan portfolios. Conversely, the ECL model could be more susceptible to managerial discretion. More conservative bank managers might make excessivecredit provisions. Our findings show that high conservatism is positively associated with higher levels of LLP. In addition, the effect of accounting conservatism is contingent upon the type of loan loss model. We …

Checking Smart Contracts With Structural Code Embedding, Zhipeng Gao, Lingxiao Jiang, Xin Xia, David Lo, John Grundy

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Smart contracts have been increasingly used together with blockchains to automate financial and business transactions. However, many bugs and vulnerabilities have been identified in many contracts which raises serious concerns about smart contract security, not to mention that the blockchain systems on which the smart contracts are built can be buggy. Thus, there is a significant need to better maintain smart contract code and ensure its high reliability. In this paper, we propose an automated approach to learn characteristics of smart contracts in Solidity, useful for repetitive contract code, bug detection and contract validation. Our new approach is based on …