Computer Sciences Commons^™

Deep Morphological Neural Networks, Yucong Shen

Theses

Mathematical morphology is a theory and technique applied to collect features like geometric and topological structures in digital images. Determining suitable morphological operations and structuring elements for a give purpose is a cumbersome and time-consuming task. In this paper, morphological neural networks are proposed to address this problem. Serving as a non-linear feature extracting layers in deep learning frameworks, the efficiency of the proposed morphological layer is confirmed analytically and empirically. With a known target, a single-filter morphological layer learns the structuring element correctly, and an adaptive layer can automatically select appropriate morphological operations. For high level applications, the proposed …

Cs+Sociology: Global Inequality Lab 1, Elin Waring, Janet Michello

Open Educational Resources

These materials include background for the instructor and a lab that engages student in an analysis of global inequality while learning and using the R language (a programming language for statistics). Students obtain data on the US and two other countries (one more developed and one less developed).

Cs+Sociology: Global Inequality Lab 2, Elin Waring, Janet Michello

Open Educational Resources

These materials include background for the instructor and a lab that engages student in an analysis of global inequality while learning and using the R language (a programming language for statistics). Students ultimately write a function to access country level data from the CIA World Factbook.

Hacking The Extended Mind: The Security Implications Of The New Metaphysics, Robin L. Zebrowski

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

Computer security expert Paul Syverson has argued that there is a computer security equivalent of gaslighting: where a clever adversary could convince some system that some component that is not really a part of the system is in fact a part of the system. If non-biological items from our environments (or even pieces of our environments themselves) can be part of our minds (the standard Extended Mind hypothesis, EM), they are therefore part of our selves, and therefore subject to Syverson’s worry about boundary in a way that has not been explored before. If some version of EM holds, then …

Introduction (2019), Association Of Christians In The Mathematical Sciences

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

No abstract provided.

Application Of Binary Search To Video Annotation And Behavior Tracking For The Social Sciences, Caitlyn Lee

Dartmouth College Undergraduate Theses

Annotation and labeling is a critical component of computer vision. However, completed manually, this process is time and cost-intensive. In particular, video annotation is particularly arduous in terms of manual annotation and therefore is additionally costly. Because videos are often annotated frame by frame, making little use of the fact that the data between any two consecutive frames are closely related, the process of completing a single video annotation is the equivalent of the cumulative work of annotating and labeling an equal number of distinct images. For certain applications of video annotation, we can leverage assumptions about the objects in …

Comparing Brain-Like Representations Learned By Vanilla, Residual, And Recurrent Cnn Architectures, Cara E. Van Uden

Dartmouth College Undergraduate Theses

Though it has been hypothesized that state-of-the art residual networks approximate the recurrent visual system, it is yet to be seen if the representations learned by these "biologically inspired" CNNs actually have closer representations to neural data. It is likely that CNNs and DNNs that are most functionally similar to the brain will contain mechanisms that are most like those used by the brain. In this thesis, we investigate how different CNN architectures approximate the representations learned through the ventral-object recognition and processing-stream of the brain. We specifically evaluate how recent approximations of biological neural recurrence-such as residual connections, dense …

Paper Abstracts (2019), Association Of Christians In The Mathematical Sciences

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

No abstract provided.

Malicious Manipulation In Service-Oriented Network, Software, And Mobile Systems: Threats And Defenses, Dakun Shen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation includes three approaches we have been designed to tackle threats and challenges in network, software, and mobile security. The first approach demonstrates a new class of content masking attacks against the Adobe PDF standard, causing documents to appear to humans dissimilar to the underlying content extracted by information-based services. The second work protects sensitive data in binaries from being corrupted by cyber attackers. The last work proposes a mechanism which utilizes the unique walking patterns inherent to humans and differentiate our work from other walking behavior studies by using it as first-order authentication and developing matching methods fast …

Confucian Robot Ethics, Qin Zhu, Tom Williams, Ruchen Wen

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

In the literature of artificial moral agents (AMAs), most work is influenced by either deontological or utilitarian frameworks. It has also been widely acknowledged that these Western “rule-based” ethical theories have encountered both philosophical and computing challenges. To tackle these challenges, this paper explores a non-Western, role-based, Confucian approach to robot ethics. In this paper, we start by providing a short introduction to some theoretical fundamentals of Confucian ethics. Then, we discuss some very preliminary ideas for constructing a Confucian approach to robot ethics. Lastly, we briefly share a couple of empirical studies our research group has recently conducted that …

Rethinking Algorithmic Bias Through Phenomenology And Pragmatism, Johnathan C. Flowers

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

In 2017, Amazon discontinued an attempt at developing a hiring algorithm which would enable the company to streamline its hiring processes due to apparent gender discrimination. Specifically, the algorithm, trained on over a decade’s worth of resumes submitted to Amazon, learned to penalize applications that contained references to women, that indicated graduation from all women’s colleges, or otherwise indicated that an applicant was not male. Amazon’s algorithm took up the history of Amazon’s applicant pool and integrated it into its present “problematic situation,” for the purposes of future action. Consequently, Amazon declared the project a failure: even after attempting to …

What To Do When Privacy Is Gone, James Brusseau

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

Today’s ethics of privacy is largely dedicated to defending personal information from big data technologies. This essay goes in the other direction. It considers the struggle to be lost, and explores two strategies for living after privacy is gone. First, total exposure embraces privacy’s decline, and then contributes to the process with transparency. All personal information is shared without reservation. The resulting ethics is explored through a big data version of Robert Nozick’s Experience Machine thought experiment. Second, transient existence responds to privacy’s loss by ceaselessly generating new personal identities, which translates into constantly producing temporarily unviolated private information. The …

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 …

Human Supremacy As Posthuman Risk, Daniel Estrada

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

Human supremacy is the widely held view that human interests ought to be privileged over other interests as a matter of public policy. Posthumanism is an historical and cultural situation characterized by a critical reevaluation of anthropocentrist theory and practice. This paper draws on Rosi Braidotti’s critical posthumanism and the critique of ideal theory in Charles Mills and Serene Khader to address the use of human supremacist rhetoric in AI ethics and policy discussions, particularly in the work of Joanna Bryson. This analysis leads to identifying a set of risks posed by human supremacist policy in a posthuman context, specifically …

Autonomous Vehicles And The Ethical Tension Between Occupant And Non-Occupant Safety, Jason Borenstein, Joseph Herkert, Keith W. Miller

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

Autonomous vehicle manufacturers, people inside an autonomous vehicle (occupants), and people outside the vehicle (non-occupants) are among the distinct stakeholders when addressing ethical issues inherent in systems that include autonomous vehicles. As responses to recent tragic cases illustrate, advocates for autonomous vehicles tend to focus on occupant safety, sometimes to the exclusion of non-occupant safety. Thus, we aim to examine ethical issues associated with non-occupant safety, including pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and riders of motorized scooters. We also explore the ethical implications of technical and policy ideas that some might propose to improve non-occupant safety. In addition, if safety (writ large) …

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.

Information Privacy: Not Just Gdpr, Danilo Bruschi

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

The "information rush" which is characterizing the current phase of the information age calls for actions aimed at enforcing the citizens' right to privacy. Since the entire information life-cycle (collection, manipulation, storing) is now carried out by digital technologies, most of such actions consists of the adoption of severe measures (both organizational and technological) aimed at improving the security of computer systems, as in the case of the EU General Data Protection Regulation. Usually, data processors which comply with these requirements are exempted by any other duty. Unfortunately recent trends in the computer attack field show that even the adoption …

Table Of Contents (2019), Association Of Christians In The Mathematical Sciences

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

No abstract provided.

Association Of Christians In The Mathematical Sciences Proceedings 2019, Association Of Christians In The Mathematical Sciences

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

The conference proceedings of the Association of Christians in the Mathematical Sciences biannual conference, May 29-June 1, 2019 at Indiana Wesleyan University.

Fair Algorithms For Clustering, Nicolas J. Flores

Dartmouth College Undergraduate Theses

As algorithms play a large role in our decision making, the possibility of algorithmic bias has led researchers to explore the realm of fair algorithms. In this thesis, we explore the design of a fair algorithm for clustering a problem in unsupervised machine learning algorithm. Our algorithm aims to balance the representation of an arbitrary number of protected groups in each cluster. We extend prior work by allowing the points to belong to multiple protected groups and for users to compromise between stricter fairness and the clustering objective. We provide experimental validation of our work on the k-median, k-means and …

Schedule (2019), Association Of Christians In The Mathematical Sciences

ACMS Conference Proceedings 2019

No abstract provided.

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 …

The Right To Human Intervention: Law, Ethics And Artificial Intelligence, Maria Kanellopoulou - Botti, Fereniki Panagopoulou, Maria Nikita, Anastasia Michailaki

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

The paper analyses the new right of human intervention in use of information technology, automatization processes and advanced algorithms in individual decision-making activities. Art. 22 of the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provides that the data subject has the right not to be subject to a fully automated decision on matters of legal importance to her interests, hence the data subject has a right to human intervention in this kind of decisions.

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 …

Classifying Challenging Behaviors In Autism Spectrum Disorder With Neural Document Embeddings, Abigail Atchison

Computational and Data Sciences (MS) Theses

The understanding and treatment of challenging behaviors in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder is paramount to enabling the success of behavioral therapy; an essential step in this process being the labeling of challenging behaviors demonstrated in therapy sessions. These manifestations differ across individuals and within individuals over time and thus, the appropriate classification of a challenging behavior when considering purely qualitative factors can be unclear. In this thesis we seek to add quantitative depth to this otherwise qualitative task of challenging behavior classification. We do so through the application of natural language processing techniques to behavioral descriptions extracted from the …

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

School of Computer Science & Engineering Faculty Publications

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 …

Comparing The Popularity Of Testing Career Among Canadian, Chinese, And Indian Students, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Pradeep Waychal, Jingdong Jia

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Despite its importance, software testing is, arguably, the least understood part of the software life cycle and still the toughest to perform correctly. Many researchers and practitioners have been working to address the situation. However, most of the studies focus on the process and technology dimensions and only a few on the human dimension of testing, in spite of the reported relevance of human aspects of software testing. Testers need to understand various stakeholders’ explicit and implicit requirements, be aware of how developers work individually and in teams, and develop skills to report test results wisely to stakeholders. These multifaceted …

Studies On The Software Testing Profession, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Pradeep Waychal, Jingdong Jia, Daniel Varona, Yadira Tejeda Saldaña

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

This paper attempts to understand motivators and de-motivators that influence the decisions of software professionals to take up and sustain software testing careers across four different countries, i.e. Canada, China, Cuba, and India. The research question can be framed as “How many software professionals across different geographies are keen to take up testing careers, and what are the reasons for their choices?” Towards that, we developed a cross-sectional but simple survey-based instrument. In this study we investigated how software testers perceived and valued what they do and their environmental settings. The study pointed out the importance of visualizing software testing …

Design And Job Rotation In Software Engineering: Results From An Industrial Study, Ronnie Santos, Maria Teresa Baldassarre, Fabio Q. B. Silva Dr., Cleyton Magalhaes, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Jorge Correia-Neto

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Job rotation is a managerial practice to be applied in the organizational environment to reduce job monotony, boredom, and exhaustion resulting from job simplification, specialization, and repetition. Previous studies have identified and discussed the use of project-to-project rotations in software practice, gathering empirical evidence from qualitative and field studies and pointing out set of work-related factors that can be positively or negatively affected by this practice. Goal: We aim to collect and discuss the use of job rotation in software organizations in order to identify the potential benefits and limitations of this practice supported by the statement of existing theories …