Empowerment in the field of artificial intelligence formalises and quantifies (via information theory) the potential an agent perceives that it has to influence its environment. An agent which follows an empowerment maximising policy, acts to maximise future options (typically up to some limited horizon). Empowerment can be used as a (pseudo) utility function that depends only on information gathered from the local environment to guide action, rather than seeking an externally imposed goal, thus is a form of intrinsic motivation. The empowerment formalism depends on a probabilistic model commonly used in artificial intelligence. An autonomous agent operates in the world by taking in sensory information and acting to change its state, or that of the environment, in a cycle of perceiving and acting known as the perception-action loop. Agent state and actions are modelled by random variables ( S : s ∈ S , A : a ∈ A {\displaystyle S:s\in {\mathcal {S}},A:a\in {\mathcal {A}}} ) and time ( t {\displaystyle t} ). The choice of action depends on the current state, and the future state depends on the choice of action, thus the perception-action loop unrolled in time forms a causal bayesian network. == Definition == Empowerment ( E {\displaystyle {\mathfrak {E}}} ) is defined as the channel capacity ( C {\displaystyle C} ) of the actuation channel of the agent, and is formalised as the maximal possible information flow between the actions of the agent and the effect of those actions some time later. Empowerment can be thought of as the future potential of the agent to affect its environment, as measured by its sensors. E := C ( A t ⟶ S t + 1 ) ≡ max p ( a t ) I ( A t ; S t + 1 ) {\displaystyle {\mathfrak {E}}:=C(A_{t}\longrightarrow S_{t+1})\equiv \max _{p(a_{t})}I(A_{t};S_{t+1})} In a discrete time model, Empowerment can be computed for a given number of cycles into the future, which is referred to in the literature as 'n-step' empowerment. E ( A t n ⟶ S t + n ) = max p ( a t , . . . , a t + n − 1 ) I ( A t , . . . , A t + n − 1 ; S t + n ) {\displaystyle {\mathfrak {E}}(A_{t}^{n}\longrightarrow S_{t+n})=\max _{p(a_{t},...,a_{t+n-1})}I(A_{t},...,A_{t+n-1};S_{t+n})} The unit of empowerment depends on the logarithm base. Base 2 is commonly used in which case the unit is bits. === Contextual Empowerment === In general the choice of action (action distribution) that maximises empowerment varies from state to state. Knowing the empowerment of an agent in a specific state is useful, for example to construct an empowerment maximising policy. State-specific empowerment can be found using the more general formalism for 'contextual empowerment'. C {\displaystyle C} is a random variable describing the context (e.g. state). E ( A t n ⟶ S t + n ∣ C ) = ∑ c ∈ C p ( c ) E ( A t n ⟶ S t + n ∣ C = c ) {\displaystyle {\mathfrak {E}}(A_{t}^{n}\longrightarrow S_{t+n}{\mid }C)=\sum _{c{\in }C}p(c){\mathfrak {E}}(A_{t}^{n}\longrightarrow S_{t+n}{\mid }C=c)} == Application == Empowerment maximisation can be used as a pseudo-utility function to enable agents to exhibit intelligent behaviour without requiring the definition of external goals, for example balancing a pole in a cart-pole balancing scenario where no indication of the task is provided to the agent. Empowerment has been applied in studies of collective behaviour and in continuous domains. As is the case with Bayesian methods in general, computation of empowerment becomes computationally expensive as the number of actions and time horizon extends, but approaches to improve efficiency have led to usage in real-time control. Empowerment has been used for intrinsically motivated reinforcement learning agents playing video games, and in the control of underwater vehicles.
Social software engineering
Social software engineering (SSE) is a branch of software engineering that is concerned with the social aspects of software development and the developed software. SSE focuses on the socialness of both software engineering and developed software. On the one hand, the consideration of social factors in software engineering activities, processes and CASE tools is deemed to be useful to improve the quality of both development process and produced software. Examples include the role of situational awareness and multi-cultural factors in collaborative software development. On the other hand, the dynamicity of the social contexts in which software could operate (e.g., in a cloud environment) calls for engineering social adaptability as a runtime iterative activity. Examples include approaches which enable software to gather users' quality feedback and use it to adapt autonomously or semi-autonomously. SSE studies and builds socially-oriented tools to support collaboration and knowledge sharing in software engineering. SSE also investigates the adaptability of software to the dynamic social contexts in which it could operate and the involvement of clients and end-users in shaping software adaptation decisions at runtime. Social context includes norms, culture, roles and responsibilities, stakeholder's goals and interdependencies, end-users perception of the quality and appropriateness of each software behaviour, etc. The participants of the 1st International Workshop on Social Software Engineering and Applications (SoSEA 2008) proposed the following characterization: Community-centered: Software is produced and consumed by and/or for a community rather than focusing on individuals Collaboration/collectiveness: Exploiting the collaborative and collective capacity of human beings Companionship/relationship: Making explicit the various associations among people Human/social activities: Software is designed consciously to support human activities and to address social problems Social inclusion: Software should enable social inclusion enforcing links and trust in communities Thus, SSE can be defined as "the application of processes, methods, and tools to enable community-driven creation, management, deployment, and use of software in online environments". One of the main observations in the field of SSE is that the concepts, principles, and technologies made for social software applications are applicable to software development itself as software engineering is inherently a social activity. SSE is not limited to specific activities of software development. Accordingly, tools have been proposed supporting different parts of SSE, for instance, social system design or social requirements engineering. Consequently vertical market software, such as software development tools, engineering tools, marketing tools or software that helps users in a decision-making process can profit from social components. Such vertical social software differentiates strongly in its user-base from traditional social software such as Yammer.
Bridgefy
Bridgefy is a Mexican software company with offices in Mexico and California, the United States, dedicated to developing mesh-networking technology for mobile apps. It was founded circa 2014 by Jorge Rios, Roberto Betancourt and Diego Garcia who conceived the idea while participating in a tech competition called StartupBus. Bridgefy's smartphone ad hoc network technology, apparently using Bluetooth Mesh, is licensed to other apps. The app gained popularity during protests in different countries since it can operate without Internet, using Bluetooth instead. Aware of the security issues of not using cryptography and the criticism surrounding it, Bridgefy announced in late October 2020 that they adopted the Signal protocol, in both their app and SDK, to keep information private, though security researchers have demonstrated that Bridgefy's usage of the Signal Protocol is insecure. == Usage == The app gained popularity as a communication tactic during the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests and Citizenship Amendment Act protests in India, because it requires people who want to intercept the message to be physically close because of Bluetooth's limited range, and the ability to daisy-chain devices to send messages further than Bluetooth's range. == Security == In August 2020, researchers published a paper describing numerous attacks against the application, which allow de-anonymizing users, building social graphs of users’ interactions (both in real time and after the fact), decrypting and reading direct messages, impersonating users to anyone else on the network, completely shutting down the network, performing active man-in-the-middle attacks to read messages and even modify them. In response to the disclosures, developers acknowledged that "no part of the Bridgefy app is encrypted now" and gave a vague promise to release a new version "encrypted with top security protocols". Later developers said they plan to switch to Signal Protocol, which is widely recognized by cryptographers and used by Signal and WhatsApp. The Signal Protocol was integrated into the Bridgefy app and SDK by late October 2020, with the developers claiming to have included improvements such as the impossibility of a third person impersonating any other user, man-in-the-middle attacks done by modifying stored keys, and historical proximity tracking, among others. However, in 2022, the same security researchers, now including Kenny Paterson, published a paper describing how Bridgefy's usage of the Signal Protocol was incorrect, failing to remedy the previously discovered issues. The researchers performed a demonstration, showing that it was possible for users to intercept messages intended for others without the sender noticing. The researchers disclosed the vulnerabilities to the developers of Bridgefy in August 2021, but, according to the researchers, the developers had yet to resolve the issues as of June 2022. On July 31, 2023, the security firm 7asecurity released a blog post and pentest report of a white box penetration test and overall security review of the Bridgefy app in collaboration with the platform's developers. Their review, which began in November 2022 and concluded in May 2023, identified multiple critical vulnerabilities throughout the application. Many of the issues were fixed, or partially fixed, before the end of the audit, including user impersonation and biometric bypass. Bridgefy also published a blog post on August 8, 2023, announcing the audit results.
Electronic submission
Electronic submission refers to the submission of a document by electronic means: that is, via e-mail or a web form on the Internet, or on an electronic medium such as a compact disc, a hard disk or a USB flash drive. Traditionally, the term "manuscript" referred to anything that was explicitly "written by hand". However, in popular usage and especially in the context of computers and the internet, the term "manuscript" may even refer to documents (text or otherwise) typed out or prepared on typewriters and computers and can be extended to digital photographs and videos, and online surveys too. In other words, any manuscript prepared and submitted online can be considered to be an electronic submission. == History and early usage == There is no concrete data indicating when and by whom were electronic submissions used for the first time. However, research based universities in several countries have been encouraging the collection of course assignments and projects in the form of electronic submissions for almost a decade now. Several governments and organizations are also switching to electronic submissions for the collection of research papers, grant applications and government application forms. == Types of electronic submissions == Since modern computers can store and process information and data in virtually any format and with the Internet allowing easy transfer of this data, the number of scenarios in which submissions can be collected electronically has increased exponentially in the last few years. Some of these scenarios are described below. In most of these scenarios, submissions were collected on hard paper until the Information Technology revolution occurred. === Academic Submissions === Teachers, professors and teaching assistants often collect course assignments and projects electronically. Electronic submissions are usually collected using a web-based system which more often than not also helps in the management of submissions collected and stored on it. (Explained By Henny L, University of Lethbridge, AB, Canada) === Research Papers === In call-for-paper or academic conferences, prospective presenters are usually asked to submit a short abstract or a full paper on their presentation or research work electronically, which is reviewed before being accepted for the conference. === Proposals for Grants === Several grant-giving organizations like the NSA, W3C, NIA, NIH etc. require grant seekers to submit a proposal which if accepted result in the desired grants. A majority of these proposals are now submitted electronically on systems that also help in the managing and tracking the proposals submitted. === Articles for Publication === Magazines, newspapers and other publishing houses have begun accepting electronic submissions for articles from various sources - both internal (by journalists and writers hired by them) as well as external (by users and popular readers). The submitted articles are stored on a server hosted by the publication house or by a third-party Archived 2019-10-13 at the Wayback Machine vendor and are usually evaluated before being given a green signal. === Contests and Competition Entries === Almost every kind of contest or competition requires participants to submit an entry in a format described by the organizers of the contest. If the contest is an Internet-based one, then the entries or nominations for the contest are collected electronically using e-mail or other electronic means depending on feasibility and the choice of the organizers. === Government Applications === The governments of several countries are turning to electronic submission of applications and forms for various government procedures. Electronic submissions allow easier management of the applications and forms submitted. === Legal documents === Many legal documents may be submitted to the courts electronically. In England and Wales, the Civil Procedure Rules include a suitable "document exchange" as an acceptable "method of service". Case law in employment law cases has established that where a claim is submitted electronically, a prudent legal adviser should "check that it has been received and there must be systems in place for doing that". === Resumés and CVs === It has become commonplace for job-seekers to submit soft copies (electronic versions) of their resumés and CVs to recruiting agencies and online job portals. This is usually done over the Internet using e-mail or a pre-hosted web-based system. == Submission management systems == The art and science of collecting and managing electronic submissions is called Submission Management. Certain software vendors have begun developing submission management systems to assist in the collection, tracking and management of complex submission processes realized electronically. Most of these systems are web based and accessible from any device with a browser and an Internet connection. However, a majority of these systems are application specific and cannot be applied to all submission management scenarios. == Resistance to electronic submissions == Despite the easier management and tracking of electronic submissions compared to their paper-based counterparts, widespread adoption and use of electronic submissions and systems for managing them has been hampered by several facts, which include but are not limited to: Inconvenience while drawing figures, diagrams and equations on a computer Resistance to change and adoption of new technologies Lack of or limited access to the Internet.
WEA Manufacturing
WEA Manufacturing was the record, tape, and compact disc manufacturing arm of WEA International Inc. from 1978 to 2003, when it was sold and merged into Cinram International, a previous competitor. The last owner when the plant closed was Technicolor. == History == WEA Manufacturing Inc. was created in 1978–1979 when Warner Communications Inc. purchased two of its longtime suppliers: the record pressing plants Specialty Records Corporation (Olyphant, Pennsylvania) and Allied Record Company (Los Angeles). The company was headquartered in Olyphant, where the original plant was replaced in late 1981 by a new facility which retained the name Specialty Records Corporation. The Specialty Records Corporation name was dropped in 1996 in favor of WEA Manufacturing. The company invested in CD manufacturing in 1986, matching a $247,000 contribution by economic development corporation Ben Franklin Technology Partners to develop and implement new processes of manufacturing audio CDs and CD-ROMs. BFTP assembled a team of experts in physics, electrical engineering, and thin film technology from the University of Scranton and Lehigh University to carry out the research and development. The Olyphant plant and another plant in Alsdorf, Germany, were expanded to support CD pressing that year, with the Olyphant facility's production commencing first in September 1986. WEA Manufacturing grew to become one of the largest manufacturers of recorded media in the world. The company began manufacturing Laserdiscs in July 1991. The company's DVD division, Warner Advanced Media Operations (WAMO), helped design the high-density format used in DVDs, and manufactured some of the first DVDs in the late 1990s. The company was sold to Cinram International in October 2003 and no longer exists under the name WEA Manufacturing, but the Olyphant plant continued to operate under its new ownership. In 2005, the company was Lackawanna County's largest employer, with over 2,300 people working at the Olyphant plant. Cinram closed the former Allied plant in 2006, while Technicolor (which purchased Cinram's assets in 2015) closed the Olyphant plant in 2018. == Patents == WEA Manufacturing held U.S. patents related to compact disc manufacture: Print scanner, (1993). Interference of converging spherical waves with application to the design of light-readable information-recording media and systems for reading such media, (2004). Method of manufacturing a composite disc structure and apparatus for performing the method, (2005). Methods and apparatus for reducing the shrinkage of an optical disc's clamp area and the resulting optical disc, (2005). == Litigation == In 1990, WEA Manufacturing was sued by a Canadian firm, Optical Recording Co. (ORC), for alleged infringement of two 1971 patents related to glass mastering equipment which was used by Time Warner and WEA Manufacturing in the manufacture of approximately 450 million CDs. ORC contended that unlike five other major CD manufacturers in the U.S., Time Warner had refused to license the technology from ORC. In 1992, a jury assessed damages of 6 cents per disc, plus $4–5 million in interest.
SEMAT
SEMAT (Software Engineering Method and Theory) is an initiative to reshape software engineering such that software engineering qualifies as a rigorous discipline. The initiative was launched in December 2009 by Ivar Jacobson, Bertrand Meyer, and Richard Soley with a call for action statement and a vision statement. The initiative was envisioned as a multi-year effort for bridging the gap between the developer community and the academic community and for creating a community giving value to the whole software community. The work is now structured in four different but strongly related areas: Practice, Education, Theory, and Community. The Practice area primarily addresses practices. The Education area is concerned with all issues related to training for both the developers and the academics including students. The Theory area is primarily addressing the search for a General Theory in Software Engineering. Finally, the Community area works with setting up legal entities, creating websites and community growth. It was expected that the Practice area, the Education area and the Theory area would at some point in time integrate in a way of value to all of them: the Practice area would be a "customer" of the Theory area, and direct the research to useful results for the developer community. The Theory area would give a solid and practical platform for the Practice area. And, the Education area would communicate the results in proper ways. == Practice area == The first step was here to develop a common ground or a kernel including the essence of software engineering – things we always have, always do, always produce when developing software. The second step was envisioned to add value on top of this kernel in the form of a library of practices to be composed to become specific methods, specific for all kinds of reasons such as the preferences of the team using it, kind of software being built, etc. The first step is as of this writing just about to be concluded. The results are a kernel including universal elements for software development – called the Essence Kernel, and a language – called the Essence Language - to describe these elements (and elements built on top of the kernel (practices, methods, and more). Essence, including both the kernel and language, has been published as an OMG standard in beta status in July 2013 and is expected to become a formally adopted standard in early 2014. The second step has just started, and the Practice area will be divided into a number of separate but interconnected tracks: the practice (library track), the tool track are so far identified and work has started or is about to get started. The practice track is currently working on a Users Guide. == Education area == The area focuses on leveraging the work of SEMAT in software engineering education, both within academia and industry. It promotes global education based on a common ground called Essence. The area's target groups are instructors such as university professors and industrial coaches as well as their students and learning practitioners. The goal of the area is to create educational courses and course materials that are internationally viable, identify pedagogical approaches that are appropriate and effective for specific target groups and disseminate experience and lessons learned. The area includes members from a number of universities and institutes worldwide. Most members have already been involved in leveraging aspects of SEMAT in the context of their software engineering courses. They are gathering their resources and starting a common venture towards defining a new generation of SEMAT-powered software engineering curricula. As of 2018, some studies of utilizing Essence in educational settings exist. One example of the use of Essence in university education was a software engineering course carried out in Norwegian University of Science and Technology. A study was conducted by introducing Essence into a project-based software engineering course, with the aim of understanding what difficulties the students faced in using Essence, and whether they considered it to have been useful. The results indicated that Essence could also be useful for novice software engineers by (1) encouraging them to look up and study new practices and methods in order to create their own, (2) encouraging them to adjust their way-of-working reflectively and in a situation-specific manner, (3) helping them structure their way of working. The findings of another study introducing students to Essence through a digital game supported these findings: the students felt that Essence will be useful to them in future, real-world projects, and that they wish to utilize it in them. == Theory area == An important part of SEMAT is that a general theory of software engineering is planned to emerge with significant benefits. A series of workshops held under the title SEMAT Workshop on a General Theory of Software Engineering (GTSE) are a key component in awareness building around general theories. In addition to community awareness building, SEMAT also aims to contribute with a specific general theory of software engineering. This theory should be solidly based on the SEMAT Essence language and kernel, and should support software engineering practitioners' goal-oriented decision making. As argued elsewhere, such support is predicated on the predictive capabilities of the theory. Thus, the SEMAT Essence should be augmented to allow the prediction of critical software engineering phenomena. The GTSE workshop series assists in the development of the SEMAT general software engineering theory by engaging a larger community in the search for, development of, and evaluation of promising theories, which may be used as a base for the SEMAT theory. == Organizational structure == === Main organization === SEMAT is chaired by Sumeet S. Malhotra of Tata Consultancy Services. The CEO of the organization is Ste Nadin of Fujitsu. The Executive Management Committee of SEMAT are Ivar Jacobson, Ste Nadin, Sumeet S. Malhotra, Paul E. McMahon, Michael Goedicke and Cecile Peraire. === Japan Chapter === Japan Chapter was established in April 2013, and it has more than 250 members as of November 2013. Member activities include carrying out seminars about SEMAT, considering utilization of SEMAT Essence for integrating different requirements engineering techniques and body of knowledges (BoKs), and translating articles into Japanese. === Korea Chapter === The chapter was inaugurated with about 50 members in October 2013. Member activities include: 2e Consulting started rewriting their IT service engagement methods using the Essence kernel, and uEngine Solutions started developing a tool to orchestrate Essence-kernel based practices into a project method. Korean government supported KAIST to conduct research in Essence. === Latin American Chapter === Semat Latin American Chapter was created in August 2011 in Medellin (Colombia) by Ivar Jacobson during the Latin American Software Engineering Symposium. This Chapter has 9 Executive Committee members from Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Mexico, chaired by Dr. Carlos Zapata from Colombia. More than 80 people signed the initial declaration of the Chapter and nowadays the Chapter members are in charge of disseminating the Semat ideas in all Latin America. Chapter members have participated in various Latin American conferences, including the Latin American Conference on Informatics (CLEI), the Ibero American Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering Journeys (JIISIC), the Colombian Computing Conference (CCC), and the Chilean Computing Meeting (ECC). The Chapter contributed in the submission sent in response to the OMG call for proposals and currently studies didactic strategies for teaching the Semat kernel by games, theoretical studies about some kernel elements, and practical representations of several software development and quality methods by using the Semat kernel. Some of the members also translated the Essence book and some other Semat materials and papers into Spanish. === Russia Chapter === Russian Chapter has about 20 members. A few universities have incorporated SEMAT in their training courses , including Moscow State University, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Higher School of Economics, Moscow State University of Economics, Statistics, and Informatics. The chapter and some commercial companies are carrying out seminars about SEMAT. INCOSE Russian Chapter is working on an extension of SEMAT to systems engineering. EC-leasing is working on an extension of the Kernel for Software Life Cycle. Russian Chapter attended in two conferences: Actual Problems of System and Software Engineering and SECR with SEMAT section and articles. Translation of the Essence book into Russian is in progress. == Practical Applications of SEMAT == Ideas developed by the SEMAT community have been applied by both industry and ac
Economía Feminista
Economía Feminista, in English: Feminist Economics, is an Argentine digital media, focused on disclosure and creation of economics information about the gender gap. The media is managed by Mercedes D`Alessandro, Magalí Brosio, Violeta Guitart and Agurtzane Urrutia. == Concept == Economía Femini(s)ta, is a portmanteau of feminista and minita. It attempts to end stereotypes about women. It was created in 2015 and its goal is to be a source of economic data to help to display economic differences by gender, especially in Argentina. == Awards == Economía Feminista was awarded the Lola Mora prize in 2016 for the best digital media by Dirección General de la Mujer, promoted by Buenos Aires city's Legislature.