AI ethics in January 2015

BACKGROUND: Clinicians reported an increasing trend of rapid progression (RP) (AIDS within 3 years of infection) in Cuba. METHODS: Recently infected patients were prospectively sampled, 52 RP at AIDS diagnosis (AIDS-RP) and 21 without AIDS in the same time frame (non-AIDS). 22 patients were sampled at AIDS diagnosis (chronic-AIDS) retrospectively assessed as > 3 years infected. Clinical, demographic, virological, epidemiological and immunological data were collected. Pol and env sequences were u

Over the last few years, the use of new technologies for the support of elderly people and in particular dementia patients received increasing interest. We investigated the use of a video monitoring system for automatic event recognition for the assessment of instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) in dementia patients. Participants (19 healthy subjects (HC) and 19 mild cognitive impairment (MCI) patients) had to carry out a standardized scenario consisting of several IADLs such as making

Causal composition allows people to generate new causal relations by combining existing causal knowledge. We introduce a new computational model of such reasoning, the force theory, which holds that people compose causal relations by simulating the processes that join forces in the world, and compare this theory with the mental model theory (Khemlani et al., 2014) and the causal model theory (Sloman et al., 2009), which explain causal composition on the basis of mental models and structural equa

The uncanny valley (UCV) hypothesis describes a non-linear relationship between perceived human-likeness and affective response. The "uncanny valley" refers to an intermediate level of human-likeness that is associated with strong negative affect. Recent studies have suggested that the uncanny valley might result from the categorical perception of human-like stimuli during identification. When presented with stimuli sharing human-like traits, participants attempt to segment the continuum in "hum

Where does it all come from? Where are we going? Are we alone in the universe? What is good and what is evil? The scientific narrative of cosmic evolution demands that we tackle such big questions with a cosmological perspective. I tackle the first question in Chapters 4-6; the second in Chapters 7-8; the third in Chapter 9 and the fourth in Chapter 10. However, where do we start to answer such questions? In Chapters 1-3, I elaborate the concept of worldview and argue that we should aim at const

<p>This study intends to explore the current trends in the field of distance education research during the period of 2009-2013. The trends were identified by an extensive review of seven peer reviewed scholarly journals: <em>The American Journal of Distance Education</em> (AJDE), <em>Distance Education</em> (DE), <em>The European Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning</em> (EURODL), <em>The Journal of Distance Education</em> (JDE), <em&g

Judging others' personalities is an essential skill in successful social living, as personality is a key driver behind people's interactions, behaviors, and emotions. Although accurate personality judgments stem from social-cognitive skills, developments in machine learning show that computer models can also make valid judgments. This study compares the accuracy of human and computer-based personality judgments, using a sample of 86,220 volunteers who completed a 100-item personality questionnai

Tourism is affected by social, political, economic, technological and environmental changes at all scales. Population growth, redistribution of wealth, geopolitical changes and conflicts, rising fuel costs, climate change and its consequences, new technologies and work patterns, and all forms of social fashion influence who wants to travel where, for how long, to do what, and at what prices. Here, we examine six large-scale exogenous trends for the global tourism sector over the next 30 years: (

Contents Executive summary ● Scholarly communication ● The research cycle ● Types of scholarly communication ● Changes in scholarly communication system ● The journal ● What is a journal? ● The journals publishing cycle ● Sales channels and models ● Journal economics and market size ● Journal and articles numbers and trends ● Global trends in scientific output ● Authors and readers ● Publishers ● Peer review. ● Reading patterns ● Disciplinary differences ● Citations and the Impact Factor ● Costs

Glen Coppersmith, Mark Dredze, Craig Harman, Kristy Hollingshead, Margaret Mitchell. Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Computational Linguistics and Clinical Psychology: From Linguistic Signal to Clinical Reality. 2015.

Many methods have been proposed for tissue segmentation in brain MRI scans. The multitude of methods proposed complicates the choice of one method above others. We have therefore established the MRBrainS online evaluation framework for evaluating (semi)automatic algorithms that segment gray matter (GM), white matter (WM), and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) on 3T brain MRI scans of elderly subjects (65-80 y). Participants apply their algorithms to the provided data, after which their results are evalu

Ist das voll automatisierte, autonom fahrende Auto zum Greifen nah? Testfahrzeuge und Zulassungen in den USA erwecken diesen Eindruck, werfen aber gleichzeitig viele neue Fragestellungen auf. Wie werd

While relatively little is known about the psychology of domestic pigs, what is known suggests that pigs are cognitively complex and share many traits with animals whom we consider intelligent. This paper reviews the scientific evidence for cognitive complexity in domestic pigs and, when appropriate, compares this literature with similar findings in other animals, focusing on some of the more compelling and cutting-edge research results. The goals of this paper are to: 1) frame pig cognition and

This paper builds on academic and industry discussions from the 2012 and 2013 pre-ICIS events: BI Congress III and the Special Interest Group on Decision Support Systems (SIGDSS) workshop, respectively. Recognizing the potential of “big data” to offer new insights for decision making and innovation, panelists at the two events discussed how organizations can use and manage big data for competitive advantage. In addition, expert panelists helped to identify research gaps. While emerging research

Design-trained people have access to a very broad range of professions. Yet there is something paradoxical about this development: ostensibly, many of these highly successful people have moved out of the field of “design.” This phenomenon deserves deeper consideration: how do design practices spread across society? What key design practices are particularly relevant to the problems of today's society? Should what these people do still be considered design? To answer these questions, first we nee

As agents moving through an environment that includes a range of other road users – from pedestrians and cyclists to other human or automated drivers – automated vehicles continuously interact with the humans around them. The nature of these interactions is a result of the programming in the vehicle and the priorities placed there by the programmers. Just as human drivers display a range of driving styles and preferences, automated vehicles represent a broad canvas on which the designers can cra

BACKGROUND: The Microsoft Kinect has been used previously to assess spatiotemporal aspects of gait; however the reliability of this system for the assessment of people following stroke has not been established. This study examined the reliability and additional information that the Kinect provides when instrumenting a gait assessment in people living with stroke. METHODS: The spatiotemporal variables of step length, step length asymmetry, foot swing velocity, foot swing velocity asymmetry, peak

White matter tract alterations have been consistently described in Alzheimer's disease (AD). In particular, limbic fronto-temporal connections, which are critical to episodic memory function, may degenerate early in the course of the disease. However the relation between white matter tract degeneration, hippocampal atrophy and episodic memory impairment at the earliest stages of AD is still unclear. In this magnetic resonance imaging study, white matter integrity and hippocampal volumes were eva

The manner in which people preferentially interact with others like themselves suggests that information about social connections may be useful in the surveillance of opinions for public health purposes. We examined if social connection information from tweets about human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines could be used to train classifiers that identify anti-vaccine opinions. From 42,533 tweets posted between October 2013 and March 2014, 2,098 were sampled at random and two investigators independent

OBJECTIVE: The combination of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), a non-pharmacological form of therapy for treating major depressive disorder (MDD), and electroencephalogram (EEG) is a valuable tool for investigating the functional connectivity in the brain. This study aims to explore whether pre-treating frontal quantitative EEG (QEEG) cordance is associated with response to rTMS treatment among MDD patients by using an artificial intelligence approach, artificial neural netwo

Perceptual simulation represents an attempt to anticipate physical reality, whereby people can experience and interpret future environments from a subjective perspective. Working on experiential simulation for urban and landscape design requires an understanding of the relationship between man and the environment from a perceptual and cognitive standpoint. In fact, only by investigating the sensing and cognitive processes behind perception can we establish an informed approach to simulation of p

Dementia is an evolving challenge in society, and no disease-modifying treatment exists. Diagnosis can be demanding and MR imaging may aid as a noninvasive method to increase prediction accuracy. We explored the use of 2D local binary pattern (LBP) extracted from FLAIR and T1 MR images of the brain combined with a Random Forest classifier in an attempt to discern patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), Lewy body dementia (LBD), and normal controls (NC). Analysis was conducted in areas with white

The novel BackHome system offers individuals with disabilities a range of useful services available via brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), to help restore their independence. This is the time such technology is ready to be deployed in the real world, that is, at the target end users' home. This has been achieved by the development of practical electrodes, easy to use software, and delivering telemonitoring and home support capabilities which have been conceived, implemented, and tested within a u

In medical consultation, a doctor can appeal to his medical knowledge or expertise as a sign of the acceptability of his diagnosis, prognosis and/or advice ("It’s best to take these loratadine tablets, because I have seen them work really well against hay fever"). This could be quite convincing, as the patient typically requests a medical consultation because he does not know exactly what his health problem amounts to, how serious this problem is and/or what to do about it, while he does expect

There is a number of research work in the literature that have applied sEMG biofeedback as an instrument for muscle rehabilitation. Therefore, sEMG is a good tool for this research work and is used to record the myoelectric activity in the paraspinal muscles of those with AIS during habitual standing and sitting. After the sEMG evaluation, the root-mean-square (RMS) sEMG values of the paraspinal muscles in the habitual postures reflect the spinal curvature situation of the PUMC Type Ia and IIc s