An Overview of Perceptual Hashing

It is said that what happens on the internet stays on the internet, forever. In some cases this may be considered a feature. Reports of human rights violations and corporate corruption, for example, should remain part of the public record. In other cases, however, digital immortality may be considered less desirable. Most would agree that terror-related content, child sexual abuse material, non-consensual intimate imagery, and dangerous disinformation, to name a few, should not be so easily found online. Neither human moderation nor artificial intelligence is currently able to contend with the spread of harmful content. Perceptual hashing has emerged as a powerful technology to limit the redistribution of multimedia content (including audio, images, and video). We review how this technology works, its advantages and disadvantages, and how it has been deployed on small- to large-scale platforms.

The arrival and spread of the European firebug Pyrrhocoris apterus in Australia as documented by citizen scientists

We present evidence of the recent introduction and quick spread of the European firebug Pyrrhocoris apterus in Australia, as documented on the citizen science platform iNaturalist. The first public record of the species was reported in December 2018 in the City of Brimbank (Melbourne, Victoria). Since then, the species distribution has quickly expanded into 15 local government areas surrounding this first observation, including areas in both Metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria. The number of records of the European firebug in Victoria has also seen a substantial increase, with a current tally of almost 100 observations in iNaturalist as of July 31st, 2021. The case of the European firebug in Australia adds to the list of examples of citizen scientists playing a key role in not only early detection of newly introduced species but in documenting their expansion across their non-native range. Citizen science presents an exciting opportunity to complement biosecurity efforts carried out by government agencies, which often lack resources to sufficiently fund detection and monitoring programs given the overwhelming number of current and potential invasive species. Recognising and supporting the invaluable contribution of citizen scientists to science and society can help reduce this gap by: (1) increasing the number of introduced species that are quickly detected; (2) gathering evidence of the species’ early expansion stage; and (3) prompting adequate monitoring and rapid management plans for potentially harmful species.Given the range expansion patterns of the European firebug worldwide, their adaptation ability, and future climate scenarios, we suspect this species will continue expanding beyond Victoria, including other parts of Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific. We firmly believe that most of the knowledge about how this expansion process continues to happen will be provided by citizen scientists.

Sampling Politics

This book is an exploration of the geocultural politics of music sampling. Each chapter delves into one case study—a track, or larger work—from the inside out by starting with the samples that are at the heart of the work. The objective is to unpack how sampled and sampling material work together in light of shifts in the political, economic, and sociocultural contexts of their making, distribution, and reception since. Considering sampling as a material of music, not simply a digital technique or restricted to one sort of music making, addresses an under-explored dimension in studies of the relationship between music (any sort) and politics of the day (usually progressive, social movements). This is a tendency to concentrate on the lyrics as where all the political meaning lies. But this overlooks how sampling, or borrowing from the music made by others, even one’s own, can also be a political act even when this is not the intention. Based on extensive archival research, close-listening musical analysis, and interviews with artists or their estates, each study provides ways to listen, hear (again), and so learn more about how each piece, as sampled and sampling music making, work, on its own musico-cultural terms. Some errors in the public record, misperceptions about some of the works and artists who feature, are corrected in light of debates over the creative, legal, and cultural legacy of music sampling as either “borrowing,” “appropriation,” or even “theft.”

11. The key functions of Parliament

This chapter identifies Parliament’s primary functions of making law and scrutinising government action. Parliament’s scrutiny of government has been defined as ‘the process of examining expenditure, administration, and policy in detail, on the public record, requiring the government of the day to explain itself to parliamentarians as representatives of the citizen and the taxpayer, and to justify its actions’. In the absence of a codified constitution and entrenched limits on executive power, the requirement for the government to answer to Parliament for its actions acts as a check and control. The chapter also considers the legislative process, particularly legislative scrutiny. Secondary legislation made by the government can often be subject to much less scrutiny and debate than primary legislation, and sometimes none at all. These scrutiny gaps increase the risk of arbitrary law-making and ‘governing from the shadows’, again raising rule of law concerns.

Most distant fastnesses: the photography of the 1887 Yukon Expedition

While there has been an increasing interest in the cultural and historical importance of 19th century survey photography, little attention has been paid to similar work conducted in Canada’s north. This paper examines the photography produced during the Geological Survey of Canada’s 1887 Yukon Expedition and its function as a tool of the Dominion government to exert control over the Yukon River Valley. By returning the photography to its functional roots and situating it within the larger documentary history of Canada’s westward expansion, this thesis argues that the images helped to do three things: prevent the abrogation of the 1825 treaty boundary between Alaska and Canada; collect visual evidence for the public record of the Yukon and Canada’s presence therein; and encourage settlement and development of the region by Canadian citizens.

Most distant fastnesses: the photography of the 1887 Yukon Expedition

While there has been an increasing interest in the cultural and historical importance of 19th century survey photography, little attention has been paid to similar work conducted in Canada’s north. This paper examines the photography produced during the Geological Survey of Canada’s 1887 Yukon Expedition and its function as a tool of the Dominion government to exert control over the Yukon River Valley. By returning the photography to its functional roots and situating it within the larger documentary history of Canada’s westward expansion, this thesis argues that the images helped to do three things: prevent the abrogation of the 1825 treaty boundary between Alaska and Canada; collect visual evidence for the public record of the Yukon and Canada’s presence therein; and encourage settlement and development of the region by Canadian citizens.

“Nobody's Children”? Political Responses to the Homecoming of First World War Veterans in Northern and Southern Ireland, 1918–1929

At the time when Irish veterans of the Great War were being demobilized, Ireland was in a period of profound social, political, and cultural change that was irreversibly transforming the island. Armistice and the veterans’ relief at having survived the conflict and being back with family could not eclipse the overwhelming political climate they met on their homecoming. This article draws on the 1929 Report by the Committee on Claims of British Ex-servicemen, commissioned by the Irish Free State to investigate whether Irish veterans were discriminated against by the Southern Irish and British authorities. The research also makes use of a range of underexploited primary sources: the Liaison and Evacuation Papers in the Military Archives in Dublin, the collection of minutes of the Irish Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Land Trust in the National Archives in London, and original material from the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland and the National Archives of Ireland relating to economic programs for veterans. A comparative approach of to the respective demobilizations of veterans in Northern and Southern Ireland in the 1920s reveals that disparities in formal recognition of their sacrifice and in special provision for housing and employment significantly and painfully complicated their repatriation.

Analysis of Data Use Registers published by health data custodians in the UK

Transparency of how health and social care data is used by researchers is crucial to building public trust. We define 'data use registers' as a public record of data an organisation has shared with other individuals or organisations for the purpose of research, innovation and service evaluation, and are used by some data custodians across the United Kingdom to increase transparency of data use. They typically contain information about the type of data being shared, the purpose, date of approval and name of organisation or individual using (or receiving) the data. However, information published lacks standardisation across organisations. Registers do not yet have a consistent approach and are often incomplete, updated infrequently and not accessible to the public. In this paper, we present an empirical analysis of existing data use registers in the UK and investigate accessibility, content, format and frequency of updates across health data organisations. This analysis will inform future recommendations for a data use register standard that will be published by the UK Health Data Research Alliance.

The Politics of Archives in Uganda

Since the beginning of the 21st century, archivists in Uganda have been pursuing a number of projects to make previously inaccessible archival collections available for research. All of this work of archival rehabilitation makes it hard to see the longer history of control and curatorship in the management of Uganda’s public record. Uganda’s archives have, over the course of decades, been rearranged and pruned in response to changing political and intellectual demands. In the 1950s and 1960s British and Ugandan officials sought to shield the paper record from examination. This regime of access control deprived campaigners of inspiration and evidence. During the 1970s, with the ascendancy of Idi Amin’s government, archives were rendered into a national patrimony. Civil servants hastened to ensure that the record of their accomplishments was stored in safe custody. Since the late 1980s the government of Yoweri Museveni has disinvested the state from the legacies of the past. For the Museveni government the slow decay of the public record has allowed the foreclosing of divisive debates about history. Uganda’s political history has been episodic and interrupted, and every new regime has had to struggle anew to author a narrative about national self-becoming. That is why Uganda’s governments have taken such dramatically different positions on the management of historical knowledge. Opening or withholding archival materials is a way of editing the public record. It makes some kinds of information state secrets and renders other aspects of the past into a legacy, a source of inspiration and orientation.