We propose a new information sharing system, named ``BisNet'', which automatically gathers information about the bookmarks stored in users' web browsers and helps the users exchange URIs of possibly interesting web pages with others who have similar interest with them. Being different from other typical agent services that gather and provide information according to pre-registered user profiles, BisNet is expected to share more relevant information because of its use of web browser bookmarks that are actively selected (...) and ordered by many humans. To enhance the relevance of information being shared, we developed a novel algorithm for directory evaluation. This algorithm only looks at the local referential structure between bookmark directories and URIs and calculates for each directory the ``order index'' that represents how well its content URIs are put in order with a focus on specific areas of interest. Then each directory receives new URIs from other related directories with large order indexes. The repetition of such URI exchanges makes the whole directory-URI networks dynamically form directory groups according to the commonness of the URIs they refer to. Our method is unique in that it pays no attention to the actual contents of web pages, and thus is much simpler and faster than other methods based on the result of content analysis. We carried out a field trial that involved 45 people who used a prototype version of BisNet clients. The result indicated that the relevance of shared URIs positively correlated with the ``order index'' of surrounding related directories, demonstrating the effectiveness of the method we proposed. (shrink)

With the emergence of service provisioning environments and new networking capabilities, antagonistic businesses have been able to collaborate securely by sharing information in order to have a beneficial result for all. This collaboration has sometimes been imposed by state legislation and sometimes been desirable by the firms themselves so as to resolve frequently occurring abnormalities. In any case, as information exchange takes place between antagonistic firms, security and privacy issues arise. In the context of this paper, a (...) collaborative environment has been analyzed for enterprises that set out in the banking sector. A Grid-based Anti-Money Laundering (AML) system has been developed in an effort to take advantage of the Grid infrastructure, supporting the secure and trustful exchange of information between financial institutions and ensuring the confidentiality of the data transferred and the authentication of the users to whom they are available. Special emphasis is put on security mechanisms for supporting identity and privacy management as well as in Service Level Agreements (SLA) enforcement for enabling a trust enforcement platform in a collaboration business model. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose an inter-personal information sharing model among individuals based on personalized recommendations. In the proposed model, we define an information resource as shared between people when both of them consider it important --- not merely when they both possess it. In other words, the model defines the importance of information resources based on personalized recommendations from identifiable acquaintances. The proposed method is based on a collaborative filtering system that focuses on evaluations from (...) identifiable acquaintances. It utilizes both user evaluations for documents and their contents. In other words, each user profile is represented as a matrix of credibility to the other users' evaluations on each domain of interests. We extended the content-based collaborative filtering method to distinguish other users to whom the documents should be recommended. We also applied a concept-based vector space model to represent the domain of interests instead of the previous method which represented them by a term-based vector space model. We introduce a personalized concept-base compiled from each user's information repository to improve the information retrieval in the user's environment. Furthermore, the concept-spaces change from user to user since they reflect the personalities of the users. Because of different concept-spaces, the similarity between a document and a user's interest varies for each user. As a result, a user receives recommendations from other users who have different view points, achieving inter-personal information sharing based on personalized recommendations. This paper also describes an experimental simulation of our information sharing model. In our laboratory, five participants accumulated a personal repository of e-mails and web pages from which they built their own concept-base. Then we estimated the user profiles according to personalized concept-bases and sets of documents which others evaluated. We simulated inter-personal recommendation based on the user profiles and evaluated the performance of the recommendation method by comparing the recommended documents to the result of the content-based collaborative filtering. (shrink)

This paper proposes an agent community based information retrieval method, which uses agent communities to manage and look up information related to users. An agent works as a delegate of its user and searches for information that the user wants by communicating with other agents. The communication between agents is carried out in a peer-to-peer computing architecture. In order to retrieve information related to a user query, an agent uses two histories : a query/retrieved document (...) history(Q/RDH) and a query/sender agent history(Q/SAH). The former is a list of pairs of a query and retrieved documents, where the queries were sent by the agent itself. The latter is a list of pairs of a query and sender agents and shows ``who sent what query to the agent''. This is useful to find a new information source. Making use of the Q/SAH is expected to cause a collaborative filtering effect, which gradually creates virtual agent communities, where agents with the same interests stay together. Our hypothesis is that a virtual agent community reduces communication loads to perform a search. As an agent receives more queries, then more links to new knowledge are achieved. From this behavior, a ``give and take''(or positive feedback) effect for agents seems to emerge. We implemented this method with Multi-Agents Kodama which has been developed in our laboratory, and conducted preliminary experiments to test the hypothesis. The empirical results showed that the method was much more efficient than a naive method employing 'broadcast' techniques only to look up a target agent. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose shared topic networks as a model of human network to organize Internet Information, and developed a system called kMedia that can generate shared topic networks by using WWW bookmark files. We also evaluate the system with experiments to know how shared topics network can help uesrs especially to know each other. A shared topic network is formed by linking topics of participants, and used to know interests of others and to exchange information (...) with others. kMedia can generate shared topics networks by using structures of WWW bookmarks, i.e., folders of bookmarks are regarded as topics of their owners. Relations among topics of different users are estimated by aggregating similarity among pages in these topics. The experiments were performed to clarify two points; one is whether topics is a better way to exchange information among people and the other is how we can measure human relationship. The first point is examined that topic recommendation is more acceptable than page recommendation. For the second point, we propose category resemblance as measurement of human relationship. Since we compare results between cases with subjects belonging to the same community and cases without communities, we noticed similarity of topics structure is affective. The category resemblance is to estimate this similarity of topic structure and it is proved that it is better than any other parameters with respect to measurement for human relationship. (shrink)

The statistics-based method ignores the semantic constraints in the English grammar area branch training model and is unable to identify the orientation information effectively. This paper systematically discusses the close relationship between English grammar area branch training model filtering, English grammar area branch training model retrieval, and machine learning. By analyzing the role of the situation in the understanding of the English grammar area branch training model, the relationship between the English grammar area branch training model and situation model (...) and the correlation between the features of the English grammar area branch training model and situation model are determined, and then, a set of filtering methods for the English grammar area branch training model are proposed. At present, there are few research studies on bias filtering, and the method of thematic filtering is generally used, which has poor effect. This paper makes full use of the domain knowledge and adopts the semantic pattern analysis technology to establish a wealth of semantic analysis resources, including various dictionaries, rules, and weight representation, so as to effectively filter the inclined English grammar area branch training model. The introduction of semantic data sources solves the problem of data sparsity and cold start in the traditional collaborative filtering system. In addition, in order to improve the scalability and real-time performance of the recommendation system, the data mining method is used to perform fuzzy clustering for users and projects in the offline data preprocessing stage. This paper proposes a search and filter scheme based on the orientation of the training model in English grammar area, elaborates on the details, constructs a whole set of function structure from representation to weight, and gives the experimental results, which prove that the system has a good filtering effect and is fast. Compared with the traditional statistical methods, the results are satisfactory. (shrink)

As one of the important 21st-century skills, collaborative problem solving (CPS) has caught much attention in the assessment area. Two initiative approaches have been created: the human-to-human and human-to-agent modes. Between the two modes, the human-to-human interaction is much closer to the real-world situation and its process stream data can reveal more detailed information about the cognitive processes. In order to measure CPS ability effectively by this mode, how to extract indicators from the data and model it (...) is crucial, while the existing methods all have some disadvantages. In the present study, we proposed a new paradigm for extracting indicators and modeling the dyad data in the human-to-human mode. Specifically, both individual and group indicators were extracted from the data stream, which served as evidence for demonstrating CPS skills. In addition, a within-item multidimensional Rasch model was used to fit the dyad data. To test the validity of the paradigm, we developed five tasks following the asymmetric mechanism and integrated them into an online testing platform. Four hundred thirty-four students from China participated in the assessment and the online platform recorded their crucial actions with time stamps. The new paradigm was used to deal with the generated process stream data. Results showed that the model fitted well. The item parameter estimates and fitting indexes were acceptable, and students were well differentiated. In general, the new paradigm of extracting indicators and modeling the dyad data is feasible for improving the human-to-human assessment of CPS. Finally, the limitations of the current study and further research directions are discussed. (shrink)

International companies expanding and competing in an increasingly global context are currently discovering the necessity of sharing knowledge across geographical and disciplinary borders. Yet, especially in such contexts, sharing knowledge is inherently complex and problematic in practice. Inspired by recent contributions in science studies, this paper argues that knowledge sharing in a global context must take into account the heterogeneous and locally embedded nature of knowledge. In this perspective, knowledge cannot easily be received through advanced information technologies, but must (...) always be achieved in practice. Empirically, this paper draws from two contrasting initiatives in a major international oil and gas company for improving its current ways of sharing knowledge between geographically distributed sites and disciplines involved in well planning and drilling. The contrasting cases reveal that while a shared database system failed to improve knowledge sharing across contexts, a flexible arrangement supporting collaboration and use of different representation of knowledge was surprisingly successful. Based on these findings the paper underscores and conceptualizes various triangulating practices conducted in order to achieve knowledge across borders. More accurately these practices are central for individuals’ and communities’ abilities to: (i) negotiate ambiguous information, (ii) filter, combine, and integrate various heterogeneous sources of information, and (iii) judge the trustworthiness of information. Concerning the design and use of information technologies this implies that new designs need to facilitate triangulating practices of users rather than just providing advanced platforms (“digital junkyards”) for sharing information. (shrink)

Technological advancements in information systems over the past few decades have enabled firms to work with the major suppliers and customers in their supply chain in order to improve the performance of the entire channel. Tremendous benefits for all parties can be realized by sharing information and coordinating operations to reduce inventory requirements, improve quality, and increase customer satisfaction; but the companies must collaborate effectively to bring these gains to fruition. We consider two alternative methods of managing (...) these interfirm supply chain relationships in this article. The first, which we have named “dictatorial collaboration,” occurs when a dominant supply chain entity assumes control of the channel and forces the other firms to follow its edicts. We compare and contrast this method with “sustainable collaboration,” in which the parties share resources and engage in joint problem solving to improve the performance of the system as a whole. We use a virtue ethics lens to describe these methods of relationship management to suggest that sustainable collaboration is preferable to dictatorial collaboration both operationally and ethically in the long run. (shrink)

(2012). UK Conference Report: Confidentiality and Collaboration—The Ethics of Information Sharing in Health and Social Care. Ethics and Social Welfare: Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 74-78. doi: 10.1080/17496535.2012.651888.

Moving away from simple data sharing within the science community towards cross-organizational collaboration scenarios significantly increased challenges related to security and privacy. They need to be addressed in order to make cross-organizational applications such as collaborative working environments a business proposition within communities such as eHealth, construction or manufacturing. Increasingly distributed scenarios where many different types of services need to be combined in order to implement semantically enriched business processes demand new approaches to security within such dynamic (...) Virtual Organizations. The allocation of access rights need to be possible in an easy and controlled way in order to allow inexperienced users to maintain the information and ensure compliance e.g. with legal and privacy related regulations. In this paper the focus is how security concepts originating from the Grid domain have been applied for collaborative working environments. The chosen scenarios are a Virtual Laboratory for Infectious Diseases (ViroLab) and different collaborative environments from the engineering domain as defined within the CoSpaces project. The requirements from these scenarios are analyzed and a security model enabling such dynamic, secure and trustworthy collaborations is presented. (shrink)

Forces such as increasing globalisation, demographic change, European enlargement, and the emergence of networked organisations stimulate the emergence of new forms of organisation and collaborative working. Mobility, sharing of information and knowledge, and collaboration across organisational networks are key aspects of workplace innovations. New information and communication technologies enable a diversity of future workplace scenarios. However, coping with the human and organisational aspects involved will determine their success or failure. In order to exploit the potential of (...) workplace innovations we, therefore, must better understand their systemic nature. This article, based on the MOSAIC project, explores the potential of mobile and multi-location collaborative workplaces, investigates some future scenarios and roadmaps, and discusses the strategies and research approaches for systemic innovation. (shrink)

Despite the fact that many of us live in secular societies, religions are also a factor in our daily lives. New information technologies and highly efficient modes of transportation have made it possible for people from various continents to encounter each other. People of different religions and ethnicities have become neighbors in our cities. Religious dialogue is more necessary in our contemporary world than it has ever been in history. This essay analyzes how the Islamic faith shapes the believers (...) worldview and the way of life. A good understanding of religions is viewed as making dialogue and respect possible, especially between Muslims and Christians in our contemporary societies. Focusing on areas of shared beliefs and practices further promotes collaboration on issues of human flourishing. This essay explores the social-political dimensions of the strict monotheism in the religion of Islam and also argues for its relation to the Christian beliefs and practices. The Islamic understanding of human persons as created by God first before all other creatures is viewed as the foundation of human responsibility. A human being is believed as endowed by God with an inherent responsibility to promote economic and social equality. (shrink)

With the advent of Web 2.0, numerous social software applications allow people to publish and share information on the Internet. Two of these types of applications – collaborative workspaces and social network sites – have a number of features in common, which are explored to provide a basis for comparative analysis. This basis is extended with a suitable definition of privacy, a sociological perspective and an applicable adversary model in order to facilitate an investigation of similarities and (...) differences with regard to privacy threats. Practical examples are derived from the use of Wikipedia and Facebook. Analysis suggests that a combination of technical, legal, and normative solutions should be considered to counter privacy issues. A number of potential solutions that may mitigate these issues are proposed. (shrink)

Because of the development towards community care, care providers not only exchange information in a team, but increasingly also in networks. This is a challenge to confidentiality. The ethical question is how care providers can keep information about the care receiver confidential, whilst at the same time exchanging information about that care receiver in a team or network? Can shared confidentiality be extended from a team to a network? To clarify this question, the article refers to the (...) advice of an expert ethics committee in mental health care. The advice regards exchange of information in a network as a further step in enhancing collaboration among care providers. Therefore, the good and evident practice of shared confidentiality in a team can be extended to a network if the same conditions are met. First, the care providers participate in a clearly defined and identifiable team or network. Secondly, they have a shared care responsibility. Thirdly, they have a duty of confidentiality. Fourth, they dialogue with the care receiver and obtain his or her consent. Finally, they apply the filter of relevance. Hence, conditional shared confidentiality is an ethical justification for the exchange of information in a team or network. (shrink)

In view of the poor recommendation performance of traditional resource collaborative filtering recommendation algorithms, this article proposes a collaborative filtering recommendation model based on deep learning for art and MOOC resources. This model first uses embedding vectors based on the context of metapaths for learning. Embedding vectors based on the context of metapaths aggregate different metapath information and different MOOCs may have different preferences for different metapaths. Secondly, to capture this preference drift, the model introduces an attention (...) mechanism, which can improve the interpretability of the recommendation results. Then, by introducing the Laplacian matrix into the prior distribution of the hidden factor feature matrix, the relational network information is effectively integrated into the model. Finally, compared with the traditional model using the scoring matrix, the model in this article using text word vectors effectively alleviates the impact of data sparsity and greatly improves the accuracy of prediction. After analyzing the experimental results, compared with other algorithms, the resource collaborative filtering recommendation model proposed in this article has achieved better recommendation results, with good stability and scalability. (shrink)

Retailers are faced with a dilemma of whether to share demand information with other supply chain members, and if so, how to share it. Our research interest is motivated by the grounds that the value of downstream retailers’ sales information to upstream manufacturers is to improve the accuracy of manufacturers’ order forecasting. This problem is particularly important in the remanufacturing of closed-loop supply chains. In this study, we consider a retailer as the demand information holder, who (...) sells new and remanufactured products in wholesale to a manufacturer and, simultaneously, she and the manufacturer competitively collect used products from the customers. We explicitly characterize the role of information sharing in a CLSC. We contributed to the information-sharing literature by integrating the existing information-sharing model with dual recycling channels and channel power structure. Previous literature suggests that retailers prefer to share demand information with other firms when the market demand is high. However, surprisingly, we find that when the manufacturer does not play a leading role, the retailer shares her forecast demand information with the manufacturer if the market demand is low. We also show that information sharing reduces the overall profit of the supply chain when the manufacturer dominates the market. In addition, our results also illustrate that information sharing affects the performance of the supply chain mainly by affecting the wholesale price. (shrink)

Background: Information sharing is one of the most important means of public health nurses collaborating with other healthcare professionals and community members. There are complicated ethical issues in the process. Research objectives: To describe the ethical dilemmas associated with client information sharing that Japanese public health nurses experience in daily practice and to clarify their decision-making process to resolve these dilemmas. Research design: Data were collected using a three-phase consensus method consisting of semi-structured interviews, self-administered questionnaires and a (...) group interview. Participants and research context: We surveyed administrative public health nurses in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. The semi-structured interviews were carried out with 12 administrative public health nurses, and the self-administered questionnaires were sent to all 899 administrative public health nurses. The group interview was carried out with eight administrative public health nurses. Ethical considerations: Ethical approval was granted by the ethics committee of the School of Health Sciences, Nagoya University, Japan (8-158, 9-130). Findings: Information-sharing ethical dilemmas occurred most often when clients’ decisions did not coincide with the nurses’ own professional assessments, particularly when they faced clinical issues that were inherently ambiguous. In their decision-making processes, nurses prioritised ‘protection of health and life’. Discussion: These findings suggest that, above all, they sought to address urgent risks to clients’ lives while upholding the principle of client autonomy as much as possible. In such cases, the nurses made decisions regarding whether to share information about the client depending on the individual situation. Conclusion: Public health nurses should protect the client’s health while taking into consideration their relationship with the client. (shrink)

Collaborative filtering is being used within organizations and in community contexts for knowledge management and decision support as well as the facilitation of interactions among individuals. This article analyzes rhetorical and technical efforts to establish trust in the constructions of individual opinions, reputations, and tastes provided by these systems. These initiatives have some important parallels with early efforts to support quantitative opinion polling and construct the notion of “public opinion.” The article explores specific ways to increase trust in these (...) systems, albeit a “guarded trust” in which individuals actively seek information about system foibles and analyze the reputations of participants. (shrink)

In this study, we focus on the problem of information expiration when using the traditional collaborative filtering algorithm and propose a new collaborative filtering algorithm by integrating the time factor. This algorithm considers information influence attenuation over time, introduces an information retention period based on the information half-value period, and proposes a time-weighted function, which is applied to the nearest neighbor selection and score prediction to assign different time weights to the scores. In addition, (...) to further improve the quality of the nearest neighbor selection and alleviate the problem of data sparsity, a method of calculating users’ sentiment tendency by analysis of user review features is proposed to mine users’ attitudes about the reviewed items, which expands the score matrix. The time factor and sentiment tendency are then integrated into the K-means clustering algorithm to select the nearest neighbor. A hybrid collaborative filtering model based on the improved K-means clustering algorithm is then proposed, by combining item-based and user-based collaborative filtering. Finally, the experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can address the time effect and sentiment analysis in recommendations and improve the predictive performance of the model. (shrink)

We conducted focus groups to assess patient attitudes toward research on medical practices in the context of usual care. We found that patients focus on the implications of this research for their relationship with and trust in their physicians. Patients view research on medical practices as separate from usual care, demanding dissemination of information and in most cases, individual consent. Patients expect information about this research to come through their physician, whom they rely on to identify and filter (...) associated risks. In general, patients support this research, but worry that participation in research involving randomization may undermine individualized care that acknowledges their unique medical histories. These findings suggest the need for public education on variation in practice among physicians and the need for a collaborative approach to the governance of research on medical practices that addresses core values of trust, transparency, and partnership. (shrink)

This paper proposes the use of an argumentation framework with recursive attacks to address a trust model in a collaborative open multi-agent system. Our approach is focused on scenarios where agents share information about the credibility (informational trust) they have assigned to their peers. We will represent informants’ credibility through credibility objects which will include not only trust information but also the informant source. This leads to a recursive setting where the reliability of certain credibility information (...) depends on the credibility of other pieces of information that should be subject to the same analysis. Credibility objects are maintained in a credibility base which can have information in conflict. In this scenario, we will formally show that our proposal will produce a partially ordered credibility relation; such relation contains the information that can be justified by an argumentation process. (shrink)

Collaborative filtering technology is currently the most successful and widely used technology in the recommendation system. It has achieved rapid development in theoretical research and practice. It selects information and similarity relationships based on the user’s history and collects others that are the same as the user’s hobbies. User’s evaluation information is to generate recommendations. The main research is the inadequate combination of context information and the mining of new points of interest in the context-aware recommendation (...) process. On the basis of traditional recommendation technology, in view of the characteristics of the context information in music recommendation, a personalized and personalized music based on popularity prediction is proposed. Recommended algorithm is MRAPP. The algorithm first analyzes the user’s contextual information under music recommendation and classifies and models the contextual information. The traditional content-based recommendation technology CB calculates the recommendation results and then, for the problem that content-based recommendation technology cannot recommend new points of interest for users, introduces the concept of popularity. First, we use the memory and forget function to reduce the score and then consider user attributes and product attributes to calculate similarity; secondly, we use logistic regression to train feature weights; finally, appropriate weights are used to combine user-based and item-based collaborative filtering recommendation results. Based on the above improvements, the improved collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm in this paper has greatly improved the prediction accuracy. Through theoretical proof and simulation experiments, the effectiveness of the MRAPP algorithm is demonstrated. (shrink)

With the advent of big data, the performance of traditional recommendation algorithms is no longer enough to meet the demand. Most people do not leave too many comments and other data when using the application. In this case, the user data are too scattered and discrete, with obvious data sparsity problems. First, this paper describes the main ideas and methods used in current recommendation systems and summarizes the areas that need attention and consideration. Based on these algorithms and based on (...) the user history data information and music data information that can be found now, the paper aims to build a personalized music recommendation system based on directed tags, which can provide basic music services to users and push them personalized music recommendation lists. Then, the collaborative filtering algorithm based on tags is introduced. Usually this method uses discrete tags, and the user tags and music tags are juxtaposed and leveled with each other, which does not reflect the importance and ranking order relationship of each tag and does not reflect the cognitive sequence of users when they listen to and annotate music. In order to improve this problem and increase the accuracy of recommendations, the user-tag and music-tag data are correlated through the tag sequence of tag and music-tag data are correlated and modeled analytically, and feature directed graphs are constructed. (shrink)

An increasing number of users have been attracted by location-based social networks in recent years. Meanwhile, user-generated content in online LBSNs like spatial, temporal, and social information provides an ever-increasing chance to study the human behavior movement from their spatiotemporal mobility patterns and spawns a large number of location-based applications. For instance, one of such applications is to produce personalized point of interest recommendations that users are interested in. Different from traditional recommendation methods, the recommendations in LBSNs come with (...) two vital dimensions, namely, geographical and temporal. However, previously proposed methods do not adequately explore geographical influence and temporal influence. Therefore, fusing geographical and temporal influences for better recommendation accuracy in LBSNs remains potential. In this work, our aim is to generate a top recommendation list of POIs for a target user. Specially, we explore how to produce the POI recommendation by leveraging spatiotemporal information. In order to exploit both geographical and temporal influences, we first design a probabilistic method to initially detect users’ spatial orientation by analyzing visibility weights of POIs which are visited by them. Second, we perform collaborative filtering by detecting users’ temporal preferences. At last, for making the POI recommendation, we combine the aforementioned two approaches, that is, integrating the spatial and temporal influences, to construct a unified framework. Our experimental results on two real-world datasets indicate that our proposed method outperforms the current state-of-the-art POI recommendation approaches. (shrink)

BackgroundAfrica continues to bear a disproportionate share of the global HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria burden. The development and distribution of safe, effective and affordable vaccines is critical to reduce these epidemics. However, conducting HIV/AIDS, TB, and/or malaria vaccine trials simultaneously in developing countries, or in populations affected by all three diseases, is likely to result in numerous ethical challenges.MethodsIn order to explore convergent ethical issues in HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria vaccine trials in Africa, the Ethics, Law and Human (...) Rights Collaborating Centre of the WHO/UNAIDS African AIDS Vaccine Programme hosted a consultation on the Convergent Ethical Issues in HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria Vaccine Trials in Africa in Durban, South Africa on the 10-11 February 2009.ResultsKey cross cutting ethical issues were prioritized during the consultation as community engagement; ancillary care obligations; care and treatment; informed consent; and resource sharing.ConclusionThe consultation revealed that while there have been few attempts to find convergence on ethical issues between HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria vaccine trial fields to date, there is much common ground and scope for convergence work between stakeholders in the three fields. (shrink)

The best way to protect information is never to release it. Yet even the earliest definition of security recognizes availability as a necessary quality. In this work, we seek to quantify the value of information disclosure for web resource evaluation and discovery. Communal evaluation tools help users share ratings on websites, music, and other online resources. This approach assumes that experiences are self-similar, so that a site one person visits is likely to have been evaluated and thus visited (...) by others. Collaborative search tools aim for discovery as opposed to evaluation. Therefore, they assume participants in a collaborative network have large sets of non-overlapping sites so that an increase in network size corresponds to an increase in web coverage. We quantify the value of information sharing for these closely related but sometimes distinct functions. In this paper, we analyzed a dataset that includes eight weeks of browsing history of 1084 college students that live in the same dormitory. Our experiments showed that for discovery, more sharing monotonically improves results; for evaluation, however, there are decreasing marginal returns for each participant added to the network. The subject population was selected for its homogeneity in order to mimic a collaborative network. (shrink)

In recent years, cross-national collaboration in medical research has gained increased policy attention. Policies are developed to enhance data sharing, ensure open-access, and harmonize international standards and ethics rules in order to promote access to existing resources and increase scientific output. In tandem with this promotion of data sharing, numerous ethics policies are developed to control data flows and protect privacy and confidentiality. Both sets of policy making, however, pay limited attention to the moral decisions and social ties enacted (...) in the everyday routines of scientific work. This paper takes its point of departure in the practices of a Danish laboratory with great experience in international collaboration regarding genetic research. We focus on a simple query, what makes genetic material and health data flow, and which hopes and concerns travel along with them? We explore what we call the flows, the nonflows, and the overflows of material and information, and we document the work producing the flows of health data and biomaterial. We call this work “ethics work” and argue that it is crucial for data sharing though it is rarely articulated in ethics policies, remains inadequately funded, and lacks acknowledgment in policies promoting international data sharing. (shrink)

This text is about obtaining and sharing genetic information when there is a potential conflict of interests between patients and their families and relatives. The patient or, in this text, the “index-person,” is someone who is considering obtaining or already has obtained genetic information about herself through genetic testing.The index-person can have several reasons to take an interest in obtaining her genetic information. She may want to know if she has a genetic predisposition for a (...) disorder in order to take measures for preventing its development. Even if there are no preventive measures, as is the case with Huntington's disease, for instance, she may still want to know whether she has the mutation, in order to adjust her future plans. These interests that an individual may have in obtaining genetic information have been used to argue in favour of a right to know. (shrink)

Point-of-interest recommendations are a popular form of personalized service in which users share their POI location and related content with their contacts in location-based social networks. The similarity and relatedness between users of the same POI type are frequently used for trajectory retrieval, but most of the existing works rely on the explicit characteristics from all users’ check-in records without considering individual activities. We propose a POI recommendation method that attempts to optimally recommend POI types to serve multiple users. The (...) proposed method aims to predict destination POIs of a user and search for similar users of the same regions of interest, thus optimizing the user acceptance rate for each recommendation. The proposed method also employs the variable-order Markov model to determine the distribution of a user’s POIs based on his or her travel histories in LBSNs. To further enhance the user’s experience, we also apply linear discriminant analysis to cluster the topics related to “Travel” and connect to users with social links or similar interests. The probability of POIs based on users’ historical trip data and interests in the same topics can be calculated. The system then provides a list of the recommended destination POIs ranked by their probabilities. We demonstrate that our work outperforms collaborative-filtering-based and other methods using two real-world datasets from New York City. Experimental results show that the proposed method is better than other models in terms of both accuracy and recall. The proposed POI recommendation algorithms can be deployed in certain online transportation systems and can serve over 100,000 users. (shrink)

When Artificial Intelligence (AI) is applied in decision-making that affects people’s lives, it is now well established that the outcomes can be biased or discriminatory. The question of whether algorithms themselves can be among the sources of bias has been the subject of recent debate among Artificial Intelligence researchers, and scholars who study the social impact of technology. There has been a tendency to focus on examples, where the data set used to train the AI is biased, and denial on (...) the part of some researchers that algorithms can also be biased. Here we illustrate the point that algorithms themselves can be the source of bias with the example of collaborative filtering algorithms for recommendation and search. These algorithms are known to suffer from cold-start, popularity, and homogenizing biases, among others. While these are typically described as statistical biases rather than biases of moral import; in this paper we show that these statistical biases can lead directly to discriminatory outcomes. The intuitive idea is that data points on the margins of distributions of human data tend to correspond to marginalized people. The statistical biases described here have the effect of further marginalizing the already marginal. Biased algorithms for applications such as media recommendations can have significant impact on individuals’ and communities’ access to information and culturally-relevant resources. This source of bias warrants serious attention given the ubiquity of algorithmic decision-making. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has pressed a pause button on global economic development, and induced significant mental health problems. In order to demonstrate the progressed relationship between the pandemic, economic slowdown, and mental health burden, we overviewed the global-level gross domestic product changes and mental problems variation since the outbreak of COVID-19, and reviewed comprehensively the specific sectors influenced by the pandemic, including international trade, worldwide travel, education system, healthcare system, and individual employment. We hope to provide timely evidence to (...) help with the promotion of policymakers’ effective strategies in mitigating economic losses induced by the pandemic; we suggest different governments or policy makers in different countries to share information and experience in dealing with COVID-19-induced economic slowdown and promote COVID-19 vaccine popularization plan to protect every individual worldwide against the coronavirus essentially; and we appeal international information share and collaboration to minimize stigmatization related to adverse mental consequences of COVID-19 and to increase mental health wellbeings of people all over the world. (shrink)

In this paper, a personalized online education platform based on a collaborative filtering algorithm is designed by applying the recommendation algorithm in the recommendation system to the online education platform using a cross-platform compatible HTML5 and high-performance framework hybrid programming approach. The server-side development adopts a mature B/S architecture and the popular development model, while the mobile terminal uses HTML5 and framework to implement the function of recommending personalized courses for users using collaborative filtering and recommendation algorithms. By (...) improving the traditional recommendation algorithm based on collaborative filtering, the course recommendation results are more in line with users' interests, which greatly improves the accuracy and efficiency of the recommendation. On this basis, online teaching on this platform is divided into two modes: one mode is the original teacher uploads recorded teaching videos and students can learn by purchasing online or offline download; the other mode is interactive online live teaching. Each course is a separate online classroom; the teacher will publish online class information in advance, and students can purchase to get classroom number and password information online. (shrink)

Networked service organisations are increasingly adopting a ‘smarter networking’ philosophy in their design of more agile and customer-focused supply models. Changing consumer behaviours and the emergence of transformative technologies—industry 4.0, artificial intelligence, big data analytics, the Internet of Things—are driving a series of innovations, in terms of ‘products’ and business models, with major implications for the industrial enterprise, in their design of more ‘digitalised’ supply chains. For B2B systems, emerging ‘product-service’ offerings are requiring greater visibility, alignment and integration across an (...) increasingly complex network of multiple partners and collaborators, in order to deliver a better service and customer ‘experience’. To support the design and operation of these multi-organisational service networks, we outline a concept of operations architecture here, underpinned by the literature and network theory, and demonstrate application using a series of exemplar case studies. Focusing on relational elements and the processes key to network integration within service supply networks, the cases inform a set of operating principles and protocols—applicable to all stakeholders ‘cooperating’, within a ‘shared’ environment. Equally critical is to understand how digital technologies may influence future operating philosophies. This article extends our theoretical understanding of network organisations, from a traditional ‘product’ perspective to that of ‘services’, and presents the case for developing a common, unified approach to designing diverse forms of multi-partner service networks. (shrink)

This book, written by a close friend, recounts episodes in the life and career of Eugene M. Shoemaker , an ever‐youthful geologist with a passionate interest in applying geological principles to the moon and planets. In the early 1960s Shoemaker persuaded the U.S. Geological Survey to found an Astrogeology Branch, of which he served as the first director, to search for impact scars on the earth and to map the moon and other planetary bodies. He also played a leadership role (...) in persuading NASA to include scientific investigations in its plans for the Apollo missions. In the 1970s, when images from spacecraft revealed the presence of impact craters on all the rocky planets and satellites, he declared that the impact of solid bodies was the most fundamental process to have taken place on the terrestrial planets. Acting on this insight, he helped to transform geology from an earth‐centered to a planetary science. Eugene Shoemaker was, indeed, a man who made an impact.Details of Shoemaker's career and his many accomplishments have been documented elsewhere, including the numerous citations for honors bestowed upon him and, sadly, his recent obituaries. In this book David Levy, an amateur astronomer and a collaborator with Gene Shoemaker and his wife, Carolyn, gives us personal reminiscences that are available nowhere else. Levy writes in a relaxed, anecdotal style that adds new information and a great sense of fun to this story.Levy tells us, for example, that as a young member of the U.S. Geological Survey, Gene broke with a stern tradition by bringing his wife and children to live with him in his field camps, arguing that their presence made him more rather than less efficient in conducting his work. It was perfectly natural, then, for Gene and Carolyn, decades later, to work together in the Australian outback, where they discovered ten previously unknown impact scars and confirmed several more suspected ones.From 1948 onward Gene harbored a fervent desire to go to the moon, a wish Levy ascribes to his view of a spectacular moonrise over the Colorado Plateau. Back then, such ideas were pure science fiction; but years later, when a real possibility arose, Gene was overcome by a mystifying loss of energy. When his doctor found nothing wrong, Gene and Carolyn took a river trip, hoping to restore his strength and spirits. But his condition worsened until he found a doctor who recognized, on sight, that Gene was a victim of Addison's disease, a formerly fatal illness that could be controlled by cortisone. On taking his second dose, Gene felt his energy returning, but he—like his contemporary President John Kennedy—was obliged to take cortisone every day for the rest of his life. This dashed Gene's hopes of going to the moon himself, but he redoubled his efforts to provide geological training to the fighter‐pilot astronauts who did go there.Beginning in the 1970s, Gene and Carolyn performed systematic searches of the night skies for comets and Near Earth Objects—bodies in orbits that might cause collisions with the earth. Levy joined in many of their searches, and the three of them shared the ultimate triumph of discovering their ninth comet together—Shoemaker‐Levy 9—and watching more than twenty luminous fragments of it plunge one by one into the atmosphere of Jupiter. Several of the pieces sent up dark plumes that lasted more than a year and would have been large enough to envelope the entire earth. No doubt remained that impacts could cause global damage to earth's lithosphere and biosphere were such impactors to strike our own planet. Levy tells us that as the last few pieces disappeared Carolyn lamented the loss of “her string of pearls”; as a consolation, Gene surprised her with the gift of a string of pearls.This book is not, nor was it intended to be, a serious biography based on extensive interviews and archival research. Regrettably, its excellence as a personal account is somewhat marred by the lack of attention from a good fact checker and editor, who would have fixed the slips that appear here and there. For example, on page 41 Levy describes Meteor Crater as being 1.2 kilometers across, and on page 43 as being 1.3 kilometers across—a small but needless discrepancy . On page 144 we read that when Gene brought a carload of students to the Grand Canyon, “a steady snow was falling as they made their way into the canyon. Gene showed a lot of enthusiasm—after all it was his crater!” Clearly, several sentences are missing from between these two sentences. Such lapses are minor, but they are sufficiently common to make the book unreliable as a source of facts. Nevertheless, it is a delightful book that can be strongly recommended to general readers and also to specialists, both for their enjoyment and for the personal details it will add to their knowledge of Eugene Shoemaker's contributions to science. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to identify relationship between leisure constraint negotiations and leisure activity participation through meta-analysis within the Korean context. Through this study, the inconsistent research results of previous studies are explained by comprehensively clarifying the relationship between the two variables and identifying a third variable that controls the relationship. The efforts of this project are expected to provide useful data that can be used for future research and to seek ways of increasing participation in leisure activities. (...) In order to achieve the purpose of this study, the research questions set in this study are as follows. First, what is the magnitude of the effect of the correlation coefficient between leisure constraint negotiations and leisure participation? Second, what are the variables that control the relationship between leisure constraint negotiations and leisure participation? Materials were collected by utilizing Research Information Sharing Service, DBpia, Korean studies Information Service System, and Korea Citation Index. Finally, 20 pieces of research materials were selected with a total of 6,843 participants. The conclusions drawn from the research questions set in this study are as follows. First, leisure constraint negotiations and leisure participation are in a static relationship, and their level is considerable. In other words, efforts to overcome leisure constraints increase participation in leisure activities. Second, gender, age, and type of active leisure activities are major variables that control the relationship between leisure constraint negotiations and leisure participation. Finally, the limitation of this study and future research orientation were discussed. (shrink)

In the piece, “What Should ChatGPT Mean for Bioethics?” Professor Cohen proposes that the introduction of AI generally, and generative AI specifically, requires that patients be informed of, and co...

Funders (located primarily in high‐income countries) and high‐income country researchers have historically dominated decision‐making within global health research collaborations: from setting agendas and research design to determining how data are collected and analysed and what happens with findings and outputs. The ethical principle of shared decision‐making has been proposed as a way to help address these imbalances within collaborations and to reduce semicolonial and exploitative forms of global health research. It is important to be clear about what shared decision‐making means (...) in order to ensure that it is not done in a tokenistic, shallow way. Thus far, the principle’s content has not been examined and articulated in detail. This paper aims to start the process of delineating a concept of fair shared decision‐making as a minimum standard for global health research. Using two hypothetical case examples, the paper will demonstrate that global health research practice is often inconsistent with ideal shared decision‐making. In such instances, it can be difficult to decide whether shared decision‐making within collaborations is fair. The paper describes how the two cases do not meet criteria for unfair or non‐ideal shared decision‐making, despite having potentially morally troubling features. The nuances of these examples of research practice help to generate clearer ideas about how to judge fairness in shared decision‐making. The paper concludes by presenting ideas about when soft power can be fairly employed between high‐income‐country and low‐ and middle‐income‐country partners and what fair compromise agreements may look like in shared decision‐making. (shrink)

The tendency towards an increasing integration of the informational web into our daily physical world (in particular in so-called Ambient Intelligent technologies which combine ideas derived from the field of Ubiquitous Computing, Intelligent User Interfaces and Ubiquitous Communication) is likely to make the development of successful profiling and personalization algorithms, like the ones currently used by internet companies such as Amazon, even more important than it is today. I argue that the way in which we experience ourselves necessarily goes through (...) a moment of technical mediation. Because of this algorithmic profiling that thrives on continuous reconfiguration of identification should not be understood as a supplementary process which maps a pre-established identity that exists independently from the profiling practice. In order to clarify how the experience of one’s identity can become affected by such machine-profiling a theoretical exploration of identity is made (including Agamben’s understanding of an apparatus, Ricoeur’s distinction between idem- and ipse-identity, and Stiegler’s notion of a conjunctive–disjunctive relationship towards retentional apparatuses). Although it is clear that no specific predictions about the impact of Ambient Intelligent technologies can be made without taking more particulars into account, the theoretical concepts are used to describe three general scenarios about the way wherein the experience of identity might become affected. To conclude, I argue that the experience of one’s identity may affect whether the cases of unwarranted discrimination resulting from ubiquitous differentiations and identifications within an Ambient Intelligent environment, will become a matter of societal concern. (shrink)

This article explores what John Dewey’s political philosophy can offer in regard to the current crisis in digital democracy. It focuses on two digital mechanisms, the “filter bubble” and the “echo chamber”. While there is a prominent, Dewey-inspired debate on “digital publics” in the literature, a reconstruction of the Deweyan concepts of the public and of shared experience shows that it does not adequately reflect the aspect of situated and embodied experience. Based on this, it is shown that digital media (...) offerings must also be rooted in local contexts of experience in order to answer the challenge of those two problematic mechanisms. (shrink)

The tendency towards an increasing integration of the informational web into our daily physical world (in particular in so-called Ambient Intelligent technologies which combine ideas derived from the field of Ubiquitous Computing, Intelligent User Interfaces and Ubiquitous Communication) is likely to make the development of successful profiling and personalization algorithms, like the ones currently used by internet companies such as Amazon , even more important than it is today. I argue that the way in which we experience ourselves necessarily goes (...) through a moment of technical mediation. Because of this algorithmic profiling that thrives on continuous reconfiguration of identification should not be understood as a supplementary process which maps a pre-established identity that exists independently from the profiling practice. In order to clarify how the experience of one’s identity can become affected by such machine-profiling a theoretical exploration of identity is made (including Agamben’s understanding of an apparatus , Ricoeur’s distinction between idem - and ipse -identity, and Stiegler’s notion of a conjunctive–disjunctive relationship towards retentional apparatuses ). Although it is clear that no specific predictions about the impact of Ambient Intelligent technologies can be made without taking more particulars into account, the theoretical concepts are used to describe three general scenarios about the way wherein the experience of identity might become affected. To conclude, I argue that the experience of one’s identity may affect whether the cases of unwarranted discrimination resulting from ubiquitous differentiations and identifications within an Ambient Intelligent environment, will become a matter of societal concern. (shrink)

In order to maximize human performance, defence forces continue to explore, develop, and apply human performance enhancement (HPE) methods, ranging from pharmaceuticals to (bio)technological enhancement. This raises ethical, legal, and societal concerns and requires organizing a careful reflection and deliberation process, with relevant stakeholders. We discuss a range of ethical, legal, and societal aspects (ELSA), which people involved in the development and deployment of HPE can use for such reflection and deliberation. A realistic military scenario with proposed HPE application (...) can serve as a starting point for such an iterative and participatory process. Stakeholders can discuss this application, modify its features, and design appropriate processes around it – for instance, procedures for informed consent. We propose that organizing aspects into these three categories – ethical, legal, and societal – can help involve appropriate interlocutors at different moments: legal aspects with people in strategy or management roles, from the start of a project; ethical aspects with people in operations and medical roles, during development; and societal aspects with people in communication and personnel roles, during deployment. Notably, we developed and discussed this framework and the three aspects in close collaboration with personnel from the military. (shrink)

Computer-based design environments for skilled domain workers have recently graduated from research prototypes to commercial products, supporting the learning of individual designers. Such systems do not, however, adequately support the collaborative nature of work or the evolution of knowledge within communities of practice. If innovation is to be supported within collaborative efforts, thesedomain-oriented design environments (DODEs) must be extended to becomecollaborative information environments (CIEs), capable of providing effective community memories for managing information and learning within constantly (...) evolving collaborative contexts. In particular, CIEs must provide functionality that facilitates the construction of new knowledge and the shared understanding necessary to use this knowledge effectively within communities of practice. (shrink)

The collaborative ‹Big Science’ approach prevalent in physics during the mid- and late-20th century is becoming more common in the life sciences. Often computationally mediated, these collaborations challenge researchers’ trust practices. Focusing on the visualisations that are often at the heart of this form of scientific practice, the paper proposes that the aesthetic aspects of these visualisations are themselves a way of securing trust. Kant’s account of aesthetic judgements in the Third Critique is drawn upon in order to (...) show that the image-building capability of imagination, and the sensus communis, both of which are integral parts of aesthetic experience, play an important role in building and sustaining community in these forms of science. Kant’s theory shows that the aesthetic appeal of scientific visualisations is not isolated from two other dimensions of the visualisations: the cognitive-epistemic, aesthetic-stylistic and interpersonal dimensions, and that in virtue of these inter-relationships, visualisations contribute to building up the intersubjectively shared framework of agreement which is basic for trust. (shrink)

When laypersons are presented with scientific information which seeks to modify their way of life, they are expected to believe, suspend belief, or reject it. Second-order assessment of scientific experts helps laypersons to make an informed decision in such situations. This is an assessment of the trustworthiness of the person making the scientific claim. In this paper I challenge the optimistic view of Anderson (2011), regarding the ease with which laypersons can perform second-order assessment of experts, by (...) pointing out some of the obstacles that may prevent laypersons from arriving at an informed decision through this means. By showing that laypersons cannot easily perform second-order assessment of experts, I make a case for sharing epistemic burdens in science communication by using Lackey's (2006) concept of dualism in the epistemology of testimony and Irzik and Kurtulmus’ (2019) work on public epistemic trust in science, as a guide. I invite experts to bear a greater share of the epistemic burden when communicating with laypersons because of their privileged epistemic condition vis-à-vis laypersons. (shrink)

Information is a peculiar quantity. Unlike matter and energy, which are conserved by the laws of physics, the aggregation of knowledge from many sources can in fact produce more information (synergy) or less (redundancy) than the sum of its parts. This feature can endow groups with problem‐solving strategies that are superior to those possible among noninteracting individuals and, in turn, may provide a selection drive toward collective cooperation and coordination. Here we explore the formal properties of information (...) aggregation as a general principle for explaining features of social organization. We quantify information in terms of the general formalism of information theory, which also prescribes the rules of how different pieces of evidence inform the solution of a given problem. We then show how several canonical examples of collective cognition and coordination can be understood through principles of minimization of uncertainty (maximization of predictability) under information pooling over many individuals. We discuss in some detail how collective coordination in swarms, markets, natural language processing, and collaborative filtering may be guided by the optimal aggregation of information in social collectives. We also identify circumstances when these processes fail, leading, for example, to inefficient markets. The contrast to approaches to understand coordination and collaboration via decision and game theory is also briefly discussed. (shrink)

Due to the complexity and versatility of network security alarm data, a cloud-based network security data extraction method is proposed to address the inability to effectively understand the network security situation. The information properties of the situation are generated by creating a set of spatial characteristics classification of network security knowledge, which is then used to analyze and optimize the processing of hybrid network security situation information using cloud computing technology and co-filtering technology. Knowledge and information about (...) the security situation of a hybrid network has been analyzed using cloud computing strategy. The simulation results show that a cyber security crash occurs in window 20, after which the protection index drops to window 500. The increase in the security index of 500 windows is consistent with the effectiveness of the concept of this document method, indicating that this document method can sense changes in the network security situation. Starting from the first attacked window, the defense index began to decrease. In order to simulate the added network defense, the network security events in the 295th time window were reduced in the original data, and the defense index increased significantly in the corresponding time period, which is consistent with the method perception results, which further verifies the effectiveness and reliability of this method on the network security event perception. This method provides high-precision knowledge of network security situations and improves the security and stability of cloud-based networks. (shrink)

This article reports on the theoretical output of a design research study, which concerns the design of a learning environment for helping students challenge the ‘balance of nature’-idea and reach an up-to-date understanding about ecosystems’ contingency. Our focus is set on whether it is feasible to articulate an empirically tested theory of teaching/learning about contingency in nature while designing our LE. The study included an exploratory phase and three research cycles. The participants were first year educational sciences students who collaboratively (...) explored computer models that simulated ecosystems’ response to changes, in order to understand the underlying contingency. In the EP, we defined learning objectives/design criteria that informed the LE’s first version. This was driven by the global/overall question of how ecosystems may function, which was explored through inter-connected local/partial questions with the aid of scaffold questions embedded in worksheets linked to the computer models. Drawing upon the RC1 results, we introduced two-version models for each change that the peer groups had to explore and assigned the first version to half and the second to the other half. These changes made it through RC2-RC3 and account for key features of the study’s theoretical output, the ‘Bifurcated Domino Path Approach’. The RC3 results show that it works effectively, and thus, we suggest that the design of LEs addressing contingency in ecosystem’s response can integrate bifurcated domino paths with several forks, where some peer groups explore one version of the target phenomenon and others an alternative one and meeting points, where they all share their different, contingency-indicating conclusions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The First (1996) Edition of the Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre: A ReviewEdward ChamplinWerner Eck, Antonio Caballos, and Fernando Fernández, eds. Das Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre. Munich: C. H. Beck, 1996. xiv 1 329 pp. 20 pls. Cloth, DM 142. (Vestigia 48)Can a committee write a report? Yes and no. The question of authorship is relevant as much to the book under review as to the (...) extraordinary text which it presents.The document is a very long Latin inscription (176 lines) recording a decree of the Senate passed late in a.d. 20 after the trial, suicide, and posthumous condemnation of Cn. Calpurnius Piso, the former legate of Syria. Copies began to turn up, all within the boundaries of Roman Baetica, in the late 1980s, one virtually complete, one partial, and fragments of some four or five other versions. Appropriately, their first publication has appeared in two versions, the one under review here in German, the other in Spanish. Most of the material is shared by both volumes, but the German edition adds a concluding chapter on the political importance of the document, while the Spanish version has considerably more on the physical properties of the bronze tablets and on the Spanish historical context—and on it the authors’ names are offered in alphabetical order. The German text scrupulously presents itself throughout as having three authors, and no hint is given as to who was responsible for which section. Let us speculate. The first three chapters, on the origins of the texts, on their physical condition, along with diplomatic transcriptions of each copy, and on the reconstruction and translation of the original text as received in Baetica, may represent the work of a team, but the subsequent chapters (4, prosopographical information; 5, the date of the trial; 6, commentary; 7, the transmission of the text to and within Baetica; and 8, the senatus consultum as political document) all bear the clear imprint of Werner Eck. That is, the prose is lapidary (Eck seems incapable of ambiguity or ellipsis); the erudition is [End Page 117] formidable; the argumentation is thorough, balanced, and imaginative; and the relative rapidity of publication is astonishing. Above all, Eck has made the book a work of truly international collaboration: between 1991 and 1996 he discussed the text at colloquia and at seminars in 38 universities (“among others”); some 60 scholars are thanked for help and criticism; and the notes are replete with specific acknowledgments to these and yet others for written and verbal comments and for reviews of unpublished work. The result is a formidable edition, clearly setting out the terms for future debates. Thus, appropriately for a decree of the Senate, the book is the work of one author, or of three, or of scores: for convenience we will call the author(s) E.As word of the SCPP’s discovery spread, scholarly excitement grew, for two reasons, one historiographical, one historical. Here is a contemporary version of a dramatic crisis familiar from the riveting account in Tacitus (Ann. 2.41–3.19): the bitter enmity between Tiberius’ legate Piso and Tiberius’ nephew and adopted son Germanicus Caesar, the suspicious death of Germanicus in 19, Piso’s trial and suicide, the passions of the plebs, the tensions within the domus Augusta and the Senate, and the brooding ambiguity of the princeps. Hence we can perhaps peer over the shoulder of Rome’s greatest historian in his study as he selects and shapes his material. At the same time, we are also offered a posed, but vivid and detailed, snapshot of power and ideology in the new principate at a time when the roles of the partners in government—that is, the princeps, his colleague (if any), and the Senate—are still being defined and the threat of civil war is still a real terror. And beyond these the document is a trove of information, constitutional, administrative, legal (both private and criminal), economic, linguistic, religious, prosopographical, topographical. To take but one instance, light is cast on several words in the evolving vocabulary of power, for here we find the earliest use of the word donativum in the sense of... (shrink)