Manifeste Festival

In his introductory preamble, Frank Madlener claimed that audiences would experience and hear The World After Covid during the 2021 edition of IRCAM's annual festival. Luckily a late change in French law allowed me to review an eight-day slice of this monde l’apres in person. (Full disclosure: one of my own pieces was performed at the last concert of the festival as part of a workshop with composer Isabel Mundry.)

Reproducibility and research integrity in applied linguistics

This preprint contains the text of a submission of written evidence to the UK Parliament, House of Commons Science and Technology Committee inquiry on reproducibility and research integrity (submitted: 24 September 2021. Viewable on the parliament website). In our review of the breadth of the reproducibility crisis within applied linguistics, we emphasise the necessity for full disclosure of data and code as well as full provision of experimental materials and protocols. We also highlight the critical role research funders have in supporting the field-specific open digital infrastructures which are needed to support research reproducibility. Finally, we call for a concerted effort to reduce the power of the large publishing houses and support society-led publishing efforts, and non-profit publication platforms.

BALLU2: A Safe and Affordable Buoyancy Assisted Biped

This work presents the first full disclosure of BALLU, Buoyancy Assisted Lightweight Legged Unit, and describes the advantages and challenges of its concept, the hardware design of a new implementation (BALLU2), a motion analysis, and a data-driven walking controller. BALLU is a robot that never falls down due to the buoyancy provided by a set of helium balloons attached to the lightweight body, which solves many issues that hinder current robots from operating close to humans. The advantages gained also lead to the platform’s distinct difficulties caused by severe nonlinearities and external forces such as buoyancy and drag. The paper describes the nonconventional characteristics of BALLU as a legged robot and then gives an analysis of its unique behavior. Based on the analysis, a data-driven approach is proposed to achieve non-teleoperated walking: a statistical process using Spearman Correlation Coefficient is proposed to form low-dimensional state vectors from the simulation data, and an artificial neural network-based controller is trained on the same data. The controller is tested both on simulation and on real-world hardware. Its performance is assessed by observing the robot’s limit cycles and trajectories in the Cartesian coordinate. The controller generates periodic walking sequences in simulation as well as on the real-world robot even without additional transfer learning. It is also shown that the controller can deal with unseen conditions during the training phase. The resulting behavior not only shows the robustness of the controller but also implies that the proposed statistical process effectively extracts a state vector that is low-dimensional yet contains the essential information of the high-dimensional dynamics of BALLU’s walking.

Pushing 'pause' on video evidence: An analysis of the proposed amendments to s 106 of the Evidence Act 2006

<p>This paper assesses the ramifications of the Cabinet Social Policy Committees proposals contained in the paper Amendments to the Evidence Act 2006. The Committee proposed a change to s 106 of the Evidence Act, which currently lies in favour of full disclosure of video evidence to the defence. The proposed amendments will reverse this presumption, ultimately restricting the defence’s access to the complainants video evidence. This paper will assess the validity and practicality of these proposed amendments, by assessing whether they are consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, the equality of arms doctrine and international case law. Although the proposed amendments were made to protect vulnerable complainants, attrition rates in New Zealand show that vulnerable witnesses do not drop out of the criminal justice system just because they are fearful about their video evidence being disclosed. The attrition rates are more complex. However, this paper argues that there are still adequate safeguards in place to protect the defence’s right to a fair trial. Whilst these safeguards holdfast, any effort to protect vulnerable victims should be encouraged.</p>

Pushing 'pause' on video evidence: An analysis of the proposed amendments to s 106 of the Evidence Act 2006

<p>This paper assesses the ramifications of the Cabinet Social Policy Committees proposals contained in the paper Amendments to the Evidence Act 2006. The Committee proposed a change to s 106 of the Evidence Act, which currently lies in favour of full disclosure of video evidence to the defence. The proposed amendments will reverse this presumption, ultimately restricting the defence’s access to the complainants video evidence. This paper will assess the validity and practicality of these proposed amendments, by assessing whether they are consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, the equality of arms doctrine and international case law. Although the proposed amendments were made to protect vulnerable complainants, attrition rates in New Zealand show that vulnerable witnesses do not drop out of the criminal justice system just because they are fearful about their video evidence being disclosed. The attrition rates are more complex. However, this paper argues that there are still adequate safeguards in place to protect the defence’s right to a fair trial. Whilst these safeguards holdfast, any effort to protect vulnerable victims should be encouraged.</p>

Non-disclosure of information in the prosecution of preventive detention regimes

<p>Preventive detention has been adopted as a measure of counter-terrorism law in many jurisdictions. It has been authorised under the Security Certificate regime in Canada and the Control Order regime in United Kingdoms. Since their adoption, the two regimes have become objects of much debate. The reason is that they both legalised the use of secret evidence and secret hearings in their prosecution. The issue arose whether the non-disclosure of such information in a judicial review to decide the reasonableness of a control order/a security certificate deprives terrorist suspects from a fair hearing. This paper explores that question by analysing two landmark cases in the United Kingdom and Canada: AF (No 3) and Charkaoui I. The paper’s thesis is that the findings of the courts in these two cases are reasonable. However, the alternative to full disclosure as adopted by both the United Kingdom and Canada – the Special Advocate model – is currently too limited. This paper subsequently offers solution for this: the judges should have a more active role in investigating the relevant facts of the cases.</p>

Non-disclosure of information in the prosecution of preventive detention regimes

<p>Preventive detention has been adopted as a measure of counter-terrorism law in many jurisdictions. It has been authorised under the Security Certificate regime in Canada and the Control Order regime in United Kingdoms. Since their adoption, the two regimes have become objects of much debate. The reason is that they both legalised the use of secret evidence and secret hearings in their prosecution. The issue arose whether the non-disclosure of such information in a judicial review to decide the reasonableness of a control order/a security certificate deprives terrorist suspects from a fair hearing. This paper explores that question by analysing two landmark cases in the United Kingdom and Canada: AF (No 3) and Charkaoui I. The paper’s thesis is that the findings of the courts in these two cases are reasonable. However, the alternative to full disclosure as adopted by both the United Kingdom and Canada – the Special Advocate model – is currently too limited. This paper subsequently offers solution for this: the judges should have a more active role in investigating the relevant facts of the cases.</p>

The concept of “demand” and its derivatives in the modern scientific insurance discourse

In the scientific literature concepts such concepts as “demand for insurance”, “demand for insurance services”, “insurance demand”, “demand for insurance products”, etc. are often used. While being simple in their intuitive reading, they are in fact not as unambiguous as they may seem at first glance. Since there is a semantic conditionality of the meaning of a derived word by the values of its components and they are also not always well-established, then terminological uncertainty arises. The negative effect is enhanced by the permissible mixing of concepts with each other or the creation of scholastic multivariability. Quite often, the definition of demand as a category is given a characteristic of the level of demand, and without taking into account its dimension and type. Moreover, there are defects in the choice of definitions and the construction of definitions, the dominance of recursive definitions that have no value for the full disclosure of the meaning and content of the defined. The author concludes about the inadmissibility of taking liberties in the interpretation of significant concepts and terms, careful construction of new turns with their participation. The problem of using concepts without giving meaning to their scientific content is posed.

Disclosure of conventional and complementary medicine use to medical doctors and complementary medicine practitioners: A survey of rates and reasons amongst those with chronic conditions

Chronic conditions are prolonged and complex, leading patients to seek multiple forms of care alongside conventional treatment, including complementary medicine (CM). These multiple forms of care are often used concomitantly, requiring patient-provider communication about treatments used in order to manage potential risks. In response, this study describes rates and reasons for disclosure/non-disclosure of conventional medicine use to CM practitioners, and CM use to medical doctors, by individuals with chronic conditions. A survey was conducted online in July and August 2017 amongst the Australian adult population. Participants with chronic conditions were asked about their disclosure-related communication with CM practitioners (massage therapist, chiropractor, acupuncturist, naturopath) and medical doctors. Patients consulting different professions reported varying disclosure rates and reasons. Full disclosure (disclosed ALL) to medical doctors was higher (62.7%-79.5%) than full disclosure to CM practitioners (41.2%-56.9%). The most strongly reported reason for disclosing to both MDs and CM practitioners was I wanted them to fully understand my health status, while for non-disclosure it was They did not ask me about my CM/medicine use. Reasons regarding concerns or expectations around the consultation or patient-provider relationship were also influential. The findings suggest that patient disclosure of treatment use in clinical consultation for chronic conditions may be improved through patient education about its importance, direct provider inquiry, and supportive patient-provider partnerships. Provision of optimal patient care for those with chronic conditions requires greater attention to patient-provider communication surrounding patients’ wider care and treatment use.

Silicon: From the Invention of the Microprocessor to the New Science of Consciousness by Federico Faggin

I was a little apprehensive about reviewing this book because I know little about engineering or the inner workings of the computer, but in the interest of full disclosure, I wanted to know more about Federico Faggin. Twenty years ago, returning from an afternoon trip during the SSE conference in San Diego, I sat next to him on the bus and mentioned that since we last met I had lost the vision in my right eye, which I was still adjusting to physically and emotionally. He volunteered that he had lost the vision in his left eye when he was a youth in Italy and lightly commented that depth perception, which concerned me, was only an issue for six or seven feet. His admission and attitude were not only a revelation, but an inspiration for me: If this eminent gentleman had made world-changing inventions, was a successful businessman and had a happy social and family life despite monocular vision; I certainly could get on successfully with my life as well. Silicon is the fascinating story of Federico Faggin’s remarkable life, but it is also his personal journey from scientific materialism to an awakening to a deeper level of consciousness. He divides his narrative into his four “lives.” His first life took place in his native northern Italy where he was a brilliant student with a wide range of interests. He became interested in computers and transistors, which had been recently invented and read all he could independently, since it was not taught in his school. His fascination deepened and he got a job with Olivetti where he learned much more than he could have at school and which become pivotal to his subsequent career.