Fire and Forget: A Moral Defense of the Use of Autonomous Weapons Systems in War and Peace

Setting aside the military advantages offered by Autonomous Weapons Systems for a moment, international debate continues to feature the argument that the use of lethal force by “killer robots” inherently violates human dignity. The purpose of this chapter is to refute this assumption of inherent immorality and demonstrate situations in which deploying autonomous systems would be strategically, morally, and rationally appropriate. The second part of this chapter objects to the argument that the use of robots in warfare is somehow inherently offensive to human dignity. Overall, this chapter will demonstrate that, contrary to arguments made by some within civil society, moral employment of force is possible, even without proximate human decision-making. As discussions continue to swirl around autonomous weapons systems, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that fire-and-forget weapons are not morally exceptional or inherently evil. If an engagement complied with the established ethical framework, it is not inherently morally invalidated by the absence of a human at the point of violence. As this chapter argues, the decision to employ lethal force becomes problematic when a more thorough consideration would have demanded restraint. Assuming a legitimate target, therefore, the importance of the distance between human agency in the target authorization process and force delivery is separated by degrees. A morally justifiable decision to engage a target with rifle fire would not be ethically invalidated simply because the lethal force was delivered by a commander-authorized robotic carrier.

11. International humanitarian law

This chapter investigates whether and how the laws that govern armed conflict achieve their objective of minimizing the suffering of combatants and non-combatants alike. International humanitarian law (IHL) reflects the tensions of an international legal order that oscillates between the apologist tendency to reflect state practice and state self-interest and the utopian desire to reflect higher values of justice and human dignity. The chapter begins with a brief overview of the evolution of this body of law, the codification of which dates from the second half of the nineteenth century. It then turns to the question of terminology, analysing the political origins and legal implications of the relatively recent term ‘international humanitarian law’. The chapter focuses on two key questions. Firstly, who or what is a legitimate target during an armed conflict? Secondly, what are legitimate means of conducting armed conflict? The chapter also considers the status of nuclear weapons under international law, a topic that captures well both the possibilities and limits of IHL.

Merit, Luck, and Taxes: Societal Reward Rules, Self-Interest, and Ideology in a Real-Effort Voting Experiment

When are high earnings considered a legitimate target for redistribution, and when not? We design a real-effort laboratory experiment in which we manipulate the assignment of payrates (societal “reward rules”) that translate performance on a real-effort counting task into pre-tax earnings. We then ask subjects to vote on a flat tax rate in groups of three. We distinguish three treatment conditions: the same payrate for all group members (“equal” reward rule), differential (low, medium, and high) but random payrates (“luck” rule), and differential payrates based on subjects’ performance on a quiz with voluntary preparation opportunity (“merit” rule). Self-interest is the dominant tax voting motivation. Tax levels are lower under “merit” rule than under “luck” rule, and merit reasoning overrides political ideology. But information is needed to activate merit reasoning. Both these latter effects are present only when voters have “full merit knowledge” that signals precisely how others obtained their incomes.

Computational Guided Identification of Novel Potent Inhibitors of NTD-N-Protein of SARS-CoV-2

<p>The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has raised severe health problems in china and across the world as well. CoVs encode the nucleocapsid protein (N-protein), an essential RNA-binding protein that performs different roles throughout the virus replication cycle and forms the ribonucleoprotein complex with viral RNA using the N-terminal domain (NTD) of N-protein. Recent studies have shown that NTD-N-protein is a legitimate target for the development of antiviral drugs against human CoVs. Owing to the importance of NTD, the present study focuses on targeting the NTD-N-protein from SARS-CoV-2 to identify the potential compounds. The pharmacophore model has been developed based on the guanosine monophosphate (GMP), a RNA substrate and further pharmacophore-based virtual screening was performed against ZINC database. The screened compounds were filtered by analysing the <i>in silico</i> ADMET properties and drug-like properties. The pharmacokinetically screened compounds (ZINC000257324845, ZINC000005169973, and ZINC000009913056) were further scrutinized through computational approaches including molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations and revealed that these compounds exhibited good binding affinity as compared to GMP and provide stability to their respective complex with the NTD. Our findings could disrupt the binding of viral RNA to NTD, which may inhibit the essential functions of NTD. These findings may further provide an impetus to develop the novel and potential inhibitor against SARS-CoV-2.<br></p>

Computational Guided Identification of Novel Potent Inhibitors of NTD-N-Protein of SARS-CoV-2

<p>The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has raised severe health problems in china and across the world as well. CoVs encode the nucleocapsid protein (N-protein), an essential RNA-binding protein that performs different roles throughout the virus replication cycle and forms the ribonucleoprotein complex with viral RNA using the N-terminal domain (NTD) of N-protein. Recent studies have shown that NTD-N-protein is a legitimate target for the development of antiviral drugs against human CoVs. Owing to the importance of NTD, the present study focuses on targeting the NTD-N-protein from SARS-CoV-2 to identify the potential compounds. The pharmacophore model has been developed based on the guanosine monophosphate (GMP), a RNA substrate and further pharmacophore-based virtual screening was performed against ZINC database. The screened compounds were filtered by analysing the <i>in silico</i> ADMET properties and drug-like properties. The pharmacokinetically screened compounds (ZINC000257324845, ZINC000005169973, and ZINC000009913056) were further scrutinized through computational approaches including molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations and revealed that these compounds exhibited good binding affinity as compared to GMP and provide stability to their respective complex with the NTD. Our findings could disrupt the binding of viral RNA to NTD, which may inhibit the essential functions of NTD. These findings may further provide an impetus to develop the novel and potential inhibitor against SARS-CoV-2.<br></p>

The multifunctional enzyme S-adenosylhomocysteine/methylthioadenosine nucleosidase is a key metabolic enzyme in the virulence of Salmonella enterica var Typhimurium

Key physiological differences between bacterial and mammalian metabolism provide opportunities for the development of novel antimicrobials. We examined the role of the multifunctional enzyme S-adenosylhomocysteine/Methylthioadenosine (SAH/MTA) nucleosidase (Pfs) in the virulence of S. enterica var Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium) in mice, using a defined Pfs deletion mutant (i.e. Δpfs). Pfs was essential for growth of S. Typhimurium in M9 minimal medium, in tissue cultured cells, and in mice. Studies to resolve which of the three known functions of Pfs were key to murine virulence suggested that downstream production of autoinducer-2, spermidine and methylthioribose were non-essential for Salmonella virulence in a highly sensitive murine model. Mass spectrometry revealed the accumulation of SAH in S. Typhimurium Δpfs and complementation of the Pfs mutant with the specific SAH hydrolase from Legionella pneumophila reduced SAH levels, fully restored growth ex vivo and the virulence of S. Typhimurium Δpfs for mice. The data suggest that Pfs may be a legitimate target for antimicrobial development, and that the key role of Pfs in bacterial virulence may be in reducing the toxic accumulation of SAH which, in turn, suppresses an undefined methyltransferase.

Fine-Grained Control-Flow Integrity Based on Points-to Analysis for CPS

A cyber-physical system (CPS) is known as a mix system composed of computational and physical capabilities. The fast development of CPS brings new security and privacy requirements. Code reuse attacks that affect the correct behavior of software by exploiting memory corruption vulnerabilities and reusing existing code may also be threats to CPS. Various defense techniques are proposed in recent years as countermeasures to emerging code reuse attacks. However, they may fail to fulfill the security requirement well because they cannot protect the indirect function calls properly when it comes to dynamic code reuse attacks aiming at forward edges of control-flow graph (CFG). In this paper, we propose P-CFI, a fine-grained control-flow integrity (CFI) method, to protect CPS against memory-related attacks. We use points-to analysis to construct the legitimate target set for every indirect call cite and check whether the target of the indirect call cite is in the legitimate target set at runtime. We implement a prototype of P-CFI on LLVM and evaluate both its functionality and performance. Security analysis proves that P-CFI can mitigate the dynamic code reuse attack based on forward edges of CFG. Performance evaluation shows that P-CFI can protect CPS from dynamic code reuse attacks with trivial time overhead between 0.1% and 3.5% (Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.).

Targeting single mothers? Dynamics of contracting Australian employment services and activation policies at the street level

Activation reforms targeted at single parents simultaneously construct them as a legitimate target for activation policy and subject them to new obligations to engage in paid work or education/training. The social policy literature has established that the work of ‘making-up’ target groups occurs at the street level as well as in government legislation. The street level has become even more significant in recent years as there has been a shift towards establishing quasi-markets for the delivery of welfare-to-work programmes and organising these around the principles of performance pay and process flexibility. However, what is largely missing from the existing literature is an analysis of how contract conditions, together with individuals' activation obligations, shape how they are targeted at the street level. Drawing on a study conducted over eight years with agencies in Australia's quasi-market for employment services, this paper argues that the changes to the contracts for governing this market changed how Australian single mothers were targeted by employment services. Over time there was a shift away from making-up single-parent clients as a distinct, vulnerable target group and a shift towards viewing them in terms of risk categories described within the agencies’ contracts.

Free Speech, Civility, and Censorship in Education

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Please check back later for the full article. Besides being protected by the First Amendment, the right of students and faculty to express divergent opinions—even discomfiting opinions—is central to the academic mission of schools, colleges, and universities. Two familiar Millian arguments underscore this point. First, the dynamic clash of contrary ideas offers the best prospect we have of arriving at the “whole truth” about any complex subject. Second, unless it is subject to periodic questioning and critique, any established and received bit of wisdom “will be held in the manner of a prejudice with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds.” These arguments notwithstanding, anyone who has ever spent time in classrooms knows that educators sometimes curtail student speech. Can such conduct be justified in educational institutions dedicated to free and open inquiry and the examination of multiple perspectives? In mundane cases, student speech is suppressed for the sake of minimizing disruptions and maintaining order and efficiency in the classroom—as when the teacher cuts off a particularly loquacious student in order to allow others to get a word in, or a tangent-prone student in order to keep the discussion on point and avoid protracted digressions, etc. Even the most ardent defender of free speech must concede that censorship, in such cases, is necessary for the effective functioning of the educational environment. A more complex and philosophically interesting set of cases involves educators who silence students for the sake of civility. Granted, when the speech in question involves personally targeted insults, gratuitous put-downs, and the like, the rationale for censorship seems unassailable. But what about speech that is strictly relevant to the topic under consideration, doesn’t descend to the level of direct, personal invective, and yet, nevertheless, denigrates members of some widely stigmatized group—e.g., a student’s declaration, during a discussion of the Supreme Court’s recent same-sex marriage ruling, that homosexuality is aberrant and a legitimate target of deterrent legislation? Is silencing this kind of utterance the appropriate course of action for educators? Or are the interests of all parties better served by permitting such views to be expressed and discussed openly in the classroom?