Call for Abstracts - Digital Ethics

Received via e-mail today - Ken

Call for Abstracts 

4th Annual International Symposium on Digital Ethics 

The Center for Digital Ethics & Policy at Loyola University Chicago (digitalethics.org) will be holding its 4th Annual International Symposium on Digital Ethics on Nov 7th, 2014.

We are looking for papers on digital ethics. Topics might include privacy, anonymity, grieving, free speech, intellectual property, hacking, scamming, surveillance, information mining, transparency, digital citizenship, and/or the ethical use of digital technologies in journalism, advertising and public relations.

Paper abstracts should propose original research and be between 500 and 1,000 words in length (not including references).

Authors invited to present papers will be eligible for up to $400 in travel funds to be able to attend the Chicago symposium. The author(s) of the Top Student Paper will be eligible for up to $1,000 in travel funds.

Abstracts are due by midnight CST on April 15th, 2014, should follow APA or MLA.

Authors of top papers will have the opportunity to have their work published in Proceedings from the 4th Annual Symposium on Digital Ethics.

Send your submission in a MS Word document attachment to contact@digitalethics.org, and please write Digital Ethics Symposium submission in the subject line. Please send questions to the same email address.

1st Call for papers: ACM Web Science Conference (WebSci14), June 23-26, 2014

1st CALL FOR PAPERS

ACM Web Science Conference (WebSci14)

June 23-26, 2014

Bloomington, Indiana, USA

websci14.org * @WebSciConf * #WebSci14

Deadline for papers: Feb. 23rd 2014

Web Science is the emergent science of the people, organizations, applications, and of policies that shape and are shaped by the Web, the largest informational artifact constructed by humans in history. Web Science embraces the study of the Web as a vast universal information network of people and communities. As such, Web Science includes the study of social networks whose work, expression, and play take place on the Web. The social sciences and computational sciences meet in Web Science and complement one another: Studying human behavior and social interaction contributes to our understanding of the Web, while Web data is transforming how social science is conducted. The Web presents us with a great opportunity as well as an obligation: If we are to ensure the Web benefits humanity we must do our best to understand it.

Call for Papers

The Web Science conference is inherently interdisciplinary, as it attempts to integrate computer and information sciences, communication, linguistics, sociology, psychology, economics, law, political science, philosophy, digital humanities, and other disciplines in pursuit of an understanding of the Web. This conference is unique in the manner in which it brings these disciplines together in creative and critical dialogue, and we invite papers from all the above disciplines, and in particular those that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries.

Following the success of WebSci09 in Athens, WebSci10 in Raleigh, WebSci11 in Koblenz, WebSci 12 in Evanston, and WebSci13 in Paris, for the 2014 conference we are seeking papers and posters that describe original research, analysis, and practice in the field of Web Science, as well as work that discusses novel and thought-provoking ideas and works-in-progress.

Possible topics for submissions include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Analysis of human behavior using social media, mobile devices, and online communities
• Methodological challenges of analyzing Web-based large-scale social interaction
• Data-mining and network analysis of the Web and human communities on the Web
• Detailed studies of micro-level processes and interactions on the Web
• Collective intelligence, collaborative production, and social computing
• Theories and methods for computational social science on the Web
• Studies of public health and health-related behavior on the Web
• The architecture and philosophy of the Web
• The intersection of design and human interaction on the Web
• Economics and social innovation on the Web
• Governance, democracy, intellectual property, and the commons
• Personal data, trust, and privacy
• Web and social media research ethics
• Studies of Linked Data, the Cloud, and digital eco-systems
• Big data and the study of the Web
• Web access, literacy, and development
• Knowledge, education, and scholarship on and through the Web
• People-driven Web technologies, including crowd-sourcing, open data, and new interfaces
• Digital humanities
• Arts & culture on the Web or engaging audiences using Web resources
• Web archiving techniques and scholarly uses of Web archives
• New research questions and thought-provoking ideas

Submission

Web Science is necessarily a very selective single track conference with a rigorous review process. To accommodate the distinct traditions of its many disciplines, we provide three different submission formats: full papers, short papers, and posters. For all types of submissions, inclusion in the ACM DL proceedings will be by default, but not mandatory (opt-out via EasyChair). All accepted research papers (full and short papers) will be presented during the single-track conference. All accepted posters will be given a spot in the single-track lightning talk session, and room to present their papers during a dedicated poster session.

Full research papers (5 to 10 pages, ACM double column, 20 mins presentation including Q&A)

Full research papers should present new results and original work that has not been previously published. Research papers should present substantial theoretical, empirical, methodological, or policy-oriented contributions to research and/or practice.

Short research papers (up to 5 pages, ACM double column, 15 mins presentation including Q&A)

Short research papers should present new results and original work that has not been previously published. Research papers can present preliminary theoretical, empirical, methodological, or policy-oriented contributions to research and/or practice.

Full and short paper submissions should be formatted according to the official ACM SIG proceedings template (WebSci archive format at http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates).

Posters (up to 6 pages, ACM abstract template, lightning talk + poster presentation)

Extended abstracts for posters, which should be in English, can be up to 6 pages, and should be formatted according to the official ACM SIG abstract template (extended abstract format at https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pl130rtd134fxu6/hiyzXgWwTs).

Other creative submission formats (flexible formats)

Other types of creative submissions are also encouraged, and the exact format and style of presentation are open. Examples might include artistic performances or installations, interactive exhibits, demonstrations, or other creative formats. For these submissions, the proposers should make clear both what they propose to do, and any special requirements they would need to successfully do it (in terms of space, time, technology, etc.)

Instructions for all types of submissions will be posted on the WebSci14 conference website soon.

Review

The Web Science program committee consists of a program committeethat covers all relevant areas of Web Science. Each submission will be refereed by three PC members and one short meta review written by a Co-PC chair,to cover both the research background of each submission as well as the necessary interdisciplinary aspects.

(Optional) Archival Proceedings in the ACM Digital Library

All accepted papers and posters will by default appear in the Web Science 2014 Conference Proceedings and can also be made available through the ACM Digital Library, in the same length and format of the submission unless indicated otherwise (those wishing not to be indexed and archived can opt out of the proceedings).

Deadlines (tentative)
Full & Short Papers:

• 23 February 2014: Submissions of full and short papers
• 13 April 2014: Notification of acceptance for papers
• 11 May 2014: Camera-ready version of papers and posters due

Late Breaking Posters:

• 23 March 2014: Submissions of posters
• 13 April 2014: Notification of acceptance for posters
• 11 May 2014: Camera-ready version of posters due 

Authors take note: The official publication date is the date the proceedings are made available in the ACM Digital Library. This date may be up to two weeks prior to the first day of the conference. The official publication date affects the deadline for any patent filings related to published work. (If proceedings are published in the ACM Digital Library after the conference is over, the official publication date is the first day of the conference.)
Call for Workshops

TBA - more information will be made available on the conference website soon

Conference calendar and rough program

• 23 June 2014: workshops, opening reception and keynote
• 24 June 2014: keynote(s), technical program, poster reception
• 25 June 2014: keynote(s), technical program, social event
• 26 June 2014: keynote, technical program, closing 

General chairs

• Fil Menczer, Indiana University
• Jim Hendler, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• Bill Dutton, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford

Program chairs

• Markus Strohmaier, University of Koblenz and GESIS (Computing)
• Ciro Cattuto, ISI Foundation (Physics)
• Eric T. Meyer, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford     (Social Sciences)

PC: TBA

Call for Abstracts: Governance of Emerging Technologies

Call for Abstracts

Governance of Emerging Technologies: Law, Policy and Ethics

May 20-21, 2013

Chandler, Arizona

The Center for Law, Science & Innovation at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University has issued a call for abstracts for proposed presentations at its upcoming First Annual Conference on Emerging Technologies: Law, Policy and Ethics.  Eleven other organizations from across the nation with an interest in emerging technologies are co-sponsoring this path-breaking event.

The national conference is slated for May 20-21 at the scenic Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort & Spa in Chandler, Ariz., just south of downtown Phoenix. Abstracts are due March 1, and should be submitted at law.asu.edu/emergingtechnologies. Successful applicants will be notified by March 22.

The conference will consist of plenary and session presentations and discussions on regulatory, governance, legal, policy, social and ethical aspects of emerging technologies, including, but not limited to, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, biotechnology, genomics, personalized medicine, stem cell and regenerative medicine, human enhancement technologies, telecommunications, information technologies, surveillance technologies, geoengineering, neuroscience and robotics.

Keynote speakers include George M. Church, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Director of PersonalGenomes.org, George Poste, Co-director and Chief Scientist, Complex Adaptive Systems Network, Regents' Professor and Del E. Webb Chair in Health Innovation, ASU, and Andrew D. Maynard, NSF International Chair of Environmental Health Sciences, and Director, University of Michigan Risk Science Center.

There is much to be learned and shared from and across the governance experience and proposals for these various emerging technologies, said Gary Marchant, Faculty Director of the Center for Law, Science & Innovation.

"What's clear is that for every single technology – from nanotechnology and neuroscience to robotics and surveillance technologies – the way we regulate them and their risks is not working," Marchant said. "Traditional forms of regulation fail because they lag so far behind the science. These technologies are going forward at an unprecedented pace, and they cut across many different industries and sectors. And the set of governance issues they raise are of unprecedented diversity and importance."

An example is autonomous weapons systems, which are capable of accomplishing military and other missions with little or no human intervention. "We are on the verge of having the technological capability to enable robots to make decisions about killing people, but we don't yet have in place any principles or methods for governing this capability," Marchant said. "We need to look at both the substance – what is the ethical thing to do? – and the process – how do we make these decisions in society? We will be exploring these issues at our conference."

The conference will bring together government regulators, technology innovators, scientists and engineers, scholars from law, public policy, philosophy and ethics, policymakers, non-governmental organizations, students and journalists.

Participants will have a unique opportunity to explore the challenges that cut across many fields, the convergence of emerging technologies, and the societal impact of a bewildering array of transformative tools and techniques, said Wendell Wallach, of the Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics at Yale University, a co-sponsor of the conference.

"We have entered a critical juncture," Wallach said. "There are still opportunities to provide direction as to which technological possibilities should be embraced and those potential harms that must be addressed. But some of the opportunities to effectively monitor, manage and modulate the emerging technologies will disappear relatively soon."

Multidisciplinary discourse, creative thinking and innovative approaches are fundamental to striking an appropriate balance between the risks and rewards, said Diana Bowman, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan Risk Science Center and the Department of Health Management and Policy. The Risk Science Center also is sponsoring the conference.

"Autonomous vehicles – drone warfare – sophisticated materials for tissue engineering – what once belonged only in the pages of science fiction is very much science fact today," Bowman said. "And with the promise of new, emerging and disruptive technologies on the horizon, our capacity to grapple with the legal, policy and societal issues posed by the promised applications shall be challenged."

Additional sponsors of the conference are the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at ASU; the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics at ASU; The Hastings Center; Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies; Initiative on Governance of Emerging Technological Systems, University of Minnesota; Ethics & Emerging Sciences Group, California Polytechnic State University; Neuroethics Studies Program, Center for Clinical Bioethics, Georgetown University Medical Center; The Science & Technology Innovation Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; and Center for Earth Systems Engineering and Management, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU.  For additional sponsorship opportunities, email gary.marchant@asu.edu. For more information about the conference and to register, visit law.asu.edu/emergingtechnologies.

About the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law

Arizona State University's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law is one of the leading public law schools in the country. Currently ranked No. 26 nationally by U.S. News & World Report, and No. 8 among all public law schools, the College has moved up further and faster in national rankings than nearly any other law school. The College is the preeminent law school in metropolitan Phoenix, the nation's sixth-largest city. In addition to its renowned faculty, the College is home to several leading centers and programs recognized for excellence, including the Center for Law, Science & Innovation, the Center for Law and Global Affairs and the Indian Legal Program. Its students choose and benefit from numerous opportunities for experiential and practical-skills training as well as an array of theoretical courses. With a writing program that is ranked No. 8 nationally by U.S. News, a wide range of clinical opportunities, a breadth of externship offerings, and a pro bono program that annually contributes more than 100,000 hours of legal and law-related services to the community, the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law is pursuing a path of boundless impact, excellence, engagement and opportunity. For more information, visit law.asu.edu. 

Call for papers: IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society

Call for Papers

2013 IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society

Social Implications of Living in a Smart World

June 27-29, 2013

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

ISTAS'13 invites original and unpublished work from individuals active in the broad theme of the conference. Authors should submit their papers online. All papers that conform to submission guidelines will be peer reviewed and evaluated based on originality, technical and/or research content/depth, correctness, relevance to conference, contributions, and readability. Acceptance of papers will be communicated to authors by email.

We welcome submissions for ISTAS's Technical Program in the following areas and not limited to:

Wearable Computing: cell-phone view, webcams, necklacedome, wearcams, wearcomp, wristwatch computer, point-of-view technologies, mobile CCTV, EyeTap, Google Glasses, sensors, nanotechnology, biomedical devices, implantables, skinput, affective computing, body area networks, cyborgs, interaction-design

Augmediated Reality: vision systems, graphical-based systems, multimedia, interactive systems, location-based services, geolocation mapping, Web 3.0, 4G, sensory inputs, biofeedback, augmented reality, diminished reality, mediated reality, reality mining, remembrance agents, humanistic intelligence, artificial intelligence

The Veillances: surveillance, counter surveillance, dataveillance, sousveillance, equiveillence, inequiveillence, mcveillance, uberveillance, veillance studies, obtrusive, unobtrusive, secret, covert, priveillance, uber analytics, big data

Everyday life: data logging, moblogging, glogging, lifelogging, 24x7 ubiquitous audio-visual recording, state/condition monitoring, permission (opt-out/opt-in), private space, public space, transparent society

Social concerns: privacy, social sorting, data-driven analytics, security, fair use/availability, equity, consent, complexity, rates, power/control, government authority, RF transmissions, resilience, regulatory issues, legislation, sustainability, autonomy, living off the grid, transhumanism

Additional papers on other traditional fields of interest to SSIT also are welcome.

ISTAS '13 will be a transdisciplinary event for engineers, designers, scientists, artists, researchers in the social sciences, law and humanities, decision makers, entrepreneurs, inventors, commercializers, etc., as well as polymaths, and anyone who is a DASSTEMist (Designer, Artist, Sustainist, Scientist, Technologist, Engineer, and Mathematician).

Important Dates

Papers up to 5000 words	January 31, 2013
Abstract only (presentation only)	February 28, 2013
Author notification	March 31, 2013
Final camera-ready copy	April 29, 2013
Conference	June 10-12, 2013

A selection of extended papers will be published by invitation only, in a special issue of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine in March 2014 guest edited by Steve Mann and Katina Michael. The author guidelines for the special issue in IEEE T&S Magazine can be found here.

Call for abstracts: Geographic Information Ethics and GIScience

Call for AAG 2013 Abstracts: 

Geographic Information Ethics and GIScience

http://dusk.geo.orst.edu/aag_ethics13.html

Following successful sessions at the 2009-2011 AAG meetings on ethics and GIScience, we are organizing sessions to continue and expand discussions of this important topic. Ethical engagements with the multitude of GIS applications and uses, whether surreptitious or overt, have marked recent developments in the field. Indeed, the variety of applications of geographic information science & technology (GIS&T) has led the U.S. Department of Labor to highlight geospatial/geographic technologies as the third largest high-growth job field for the 21st century. While the potential benefits and risks of geographic technologies are becoming well known, these sessions provides a forum to engage ethical issues. For instance:

• Geographic technologies are surveillance technologies. The data they produce may be used to invade the privacy, and even the autonomy, of individuals and groups.
• Data gathered using geographic technologies are used to make policy decisions. Erroneous, inadequately documented, or inappropriate data can have grave consequences for individuals and the environment.
• Geographic technologies have the potential to exacerbate inequities in society, insofar as large organizations enjoy greater access to technology, data, and technological expertise than smaller organizations and individuals.
• Georeferenced photos, tweets and volunteered (and unvolunteered) geographic information can reveal private information. Those data that are increasingly publicly available and used to study societal phenomena raise significant privacy concerns. 

Papers in this session again engaged with the above issues in relationship to GIScience, including such topics as:

• case studies, curriculum development, or the pedagogy of teaching GIS ethical issues; 
• issues of privacy, surveillance, inequity, erroneous or inappropriate data concerning geographic technologies;
• codes of ethics and conduct of professional organizations;
• GIS professional development;
• reflections on the changing nature of ethical issues in GIS&T

These sessions are co-sponsored by the AAG GI Systems & Science and Ethics, Justice, and Human Rights Specialty Groups.

To participate: 

1. Please register for the AAG 2013 meeting and submit your abstract online following the AAG Guidelines (http://www.aag.or/cs/anualmeeting/call_for_papers).
2. Please send your paper title, PIN, and abstract no later than Wednesday, October 20 to Rodolphe Devillers (rdeville@mun.ca), Francis Harvey (fharvey@umn.edu), or Dawn Wright (dwright@esri.com).

Call for papers: Ethics of Social Networks for Special Needs Users

Call for Papers

 Ethics and Information Technology

Special Issue on Ethics of Social Networks for Special Needs Users

Millions of persons all around the world are regular users of social networking sites. Their number is still increasing. Online Social networking practices often raise unforeseen problems with regard to the rights, needs, and interests of the vulnerable, e.g. children, the elderly, and the persons with disabilities. These categories represent what we call “special needs users” and their social networking practices raise specific challenges. Understanding, supporting or helping specials needs users poses problems of e-inclusion, access to social networks, protecting them from harm and exploitation, and accommodating their special needs, supporting their emancipation and political participation, as well as encouraging solidarity with and among these groups.

This special issue invites submissions of original research exploring the interplay between Ethics, on-line social networks, and special needs users. We are particularly interested in contributions that identify ethical issues and their resolution by devising policies and proposing design solutions to the problems identified. Social sciences and Interdisciplinary studies have seen an increased number of papers related to Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn. Most of the literature reflecting on ethical questions associated with these technologies does not go beyond the consideration of individuals’ privacy. In this special edition, we wish to explore a broader range of ethical issues raised by social networks, with a specific focus on the special needs users including children, elderly and persons with disabilities.

Values that come to mind in this context are wellbeing, voice, equality, autonomy and freedom, usability. Researchers are invited to propose papers addressing the key question of this special issue: what are the specific ethical considerations that need to be addressed in the design, deployment and governance of social networks use by special needs persons? Original articles on for example the following themes are welcome:

1. minimum age and protection of minors;
2. effect of a daily use of social networks on kids development including school performance;
3. cyber-bullying, harassment and violence arising from SN usage amongst children;
4. accessibility of elderly or disabled persons to SN;
5. digital divide and e-inclusion; 
6. ethical issues such as: identity, agency and autonomy for special needs users; 
7. generational gaps and solidarities arising from SN usage; 
8. types of solidarities arising from SN usage.

The editors at Ethics and Information Technology are seeking articles for a special issue in these areas. Submissions will be double-blind refereed for relevance to the theme as well as academic rigor and originality. High quality articles not deemed to be sufficiently relevant to the special issue may be considered for publication in a subsequent non-themed issue of Ethics and Information Technology.

Closing date for submissions: 30 September 2012

To submit your paper, please use the online submission system, to be found at www.editorialmanager.com/etin

Please contact the special guest editors for more information: Caroline Rizza and Ângela Guimarães Pereira.

Or the managing editor, Noëmi Manders-Huits

Ethics and Information Technology (ETIN) is the major journal in the field of moral and political reflection on Information Technology. Its aim is to advance the dialogue between moral philosophy and the field of information technology in a broad sense, and to foster and promote reflection and analysis concerning the ethical, social and political questions associated with the adoption, use, and development of IT.

Call for abstracts: 5th World Congress on Social Media, Mobile Apps, Internet and Web 2.0 in Medicine, Health, Biomedical Research

Call for Abstracts

Medicine 2.0'12 @ Harvard, Boston 

5th World Congress on Social Media, Mobile Apps, Internet and Web 2.0in Medicine, Health, Biomedical Research

Sept 15-16, 2012 

Medicine 2.0 is the annual academic World Congress on Social Media in Medicine and Health, this year with a new focus on mobile health applications. Last years' 2011 World Congress at Stanford was attended by 450 participants from 26 countries, with over 100 speakers, and sold out.

Medicine 2.0 is about the future of medicine using emerging technologies such as mobile apps, social media and Internet-based approaches for public health and medicine, and looks beyond the hype of other health 2.0 conferences, by focussing on an evidence-based, data driven approach. Medicine 2.0 is the only conference in this area with a research focus (although we also have a practice and a business track).

Full papers of conference presentations can be PubMed-indexed and may be eligible for publication in the leading ehealth/mhealth journal, the Journal of Medical Internet Research (Impact Factor: 4.7).

As a published researcher or potential speaker in this field we hope that you will submit an abstract in the following areas:

• Blogs and Twitter in Health 
• Building virtual communities and social networking applications for health professionals
• Building virtual communities and social networking applications for patients and consumers
• Business models in a Health 2.0 / Web 2.0 environment
• Science 2.0, collaborative biomedical research, academic / scholarly communication, publishing and peer review
• Consumer empowerment, patient-physician relationship, and sociotechnical issues
• Ethical & legal issues, confidentiality and privacy
• Health information on the web: Supply and Demand
• Innovative RSS/XML applications and Mashups
• Personal health records and Patient portals
• Public (e-)health, population health technologies, behavior change applications
• Digital Disease Detection and Biosurveillance using Twitter and other social media/mhealth/Internet sources
• The Quantified Self: tracking behavior and health
• Search, Collaborative Filtering and Recommender Technologies
• Semantic Web ("Web 3.0") applications
• The nature and dynamics of social networks in health
• Usability and human factors on the web
• Virtual (3D) environments, Second Life
• Web 2.0 approaches for behaviour change and public health
• Web 2.0 approaches for clinical practice, clinical research, quality monitoring
• Web2.0-based medical education and learning
• Wikis
• Business modelling in eHealth
• Communities in health care
• Digital Learning
• e-Coaching
• Health disparities
• Human-Computer Interface (HCI) Design
• Online decision technology
• Participatory health care
• Persuasive communication and technology
• mHealth Applications
• Ubiquitous, pervasive ehealth; domotics; Internet of things
• New and emerging Technologies

For more information: http://www.medicine20congress.com/ocs/index.php/med/med2012/schedConf/cfp

Call for papers: Personal and Ubiquitous Computing

Personal and Ubiquitous Computing
Special Issue on Security and trust in Context-Aware systems

Important dates

• Manuscript submission:   28.02.2012
• First round of reviews:    31.03.2012
• Submission of revisions:  21.04.2012
• Acceptance notification:  21.05.2012
• Final manuscript due:      18.06.2012
• Publication date:             Summer 2012

Scope
Over the last several years, studies considering impacts of security and trust in personal and ubiquitous computing have become an independent research field within the Pervasive Computing area. One strand has concentrated on using context data to establish security or authentication, while a second strand considers trust in context and services provided by remote devices. A third strand, motivated by corporate applications, focuses on resilience of an instrumentation of distributed sources.

Research also considers the question how much information can be obfuscated to protect the privacy of a user without preventing the correct operation of a given application. Methodologically, new models for the specific attack scenarios, security threats and counter-effects in wireless sensor networks and context-aware mobile systems need to be developed. 

Clearly, these strands intersect varied disciplines, including acquisition and classification of context, cryptography and fuzzy authentication, sensor networks, information theory and interface design.

The objective of this special issue is to provide a platform to bring together the above strands and other emerging paradigms of research in this area and thereby provide further impetus to research on this class of problems.

We solicit original papers and tutorial surveys on the following list of indicative topics.

• Context-based mobile wireless authentication
• Context-based device pairing
• Securing context-aware applications
• Sensor-, context-, and location-based authentication
• Spontaneous secure context-based device interactions
• Autonomic and dependable computing
• Methods and techniques for self-configuration, self-healing, self-protecting systems
• Flexible and secure orchestration of ICT services
• Establishing and managing trust in cyber-physical systems
• Anonymous/pseudonymous context aware mobile computation
• Legal and social issues of security and privacy for mobile devices
• Perception of security and privacy in mobile computing
• Resilient cryptography
• Entropy of context based keys
• Fuzzy cryptography
• Security with noisy data
• Usability aspects of secure and privacy-preserving context-aware systems
• Mechanisms that improve a user's awareness of, and control over,  privacy and security
• Agent-based methods and architectures for trust and security in  Ubiquitous Computing
• Contextual reasoning methods for privacy and security in Ubiquitous Computing
• Ontology-based and knowledge-based methods and architectures

As usual, the above is not an exhaustive list but an indicative one.

Submission Process
Prospective authors should submit a pdf of their manuscript via EasyChair at
https://www.easychair.org/account/signin.cgi?conf=stpuc2012. Formatting should follow the PUC-guidelines (see http://www.springer.com/computer/hci/journal/779 for more details). Submissions should not exceed 8000 words. 

Prior to submitting their papers for review, authors should make sure that they understand and agree to adhere to the over-length page charge policy presented in the PUC guidelines.

Guest editors

René Mayrhofer, Hedda R. Schmidtke, Stephan Sigg

Contact 

SecurityAndTrust2012@easychair.org

(With thanks to Colin Allen for sharing this with me.)

 

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Call for papers: Fourth Workshop on Roboethics

Fourth Workshop on Roboethics

May 13, 2011

CALL FOR PAPERS

Important dates:

• February 28, 2011: Paper submission deadline
• March 7, 2011: Notification of Acceptance/Rejection
• March 14, 2011: Camera-Ready Submission Deadline

Organizers: IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Roboethics

• Gianmarco Veruggio, CNR-¬‐IEIIT, Italy (corresponding co-chair)
• Jorge Solis, Waseda University, Japan (co-chair)
• Matthias Scheutz, Indiana University, USA (co-chair)

Scope: The proposed Full Day Workshop on Roboethics is the fourth biennial event, organized by the Technical Committee on Roboethics as part of the ICRA conference (previous workshops took place in 2005, 2007 and 2009). Roboethics is ethics applied to robotics, i.e., the human-centered ethics guiding the design, construction and use of robots. It deals with the study of the ethical, legal and social aspects of the introduction and use of robots in our daily lives. Progress in the field of computer science and telecommunications allows us to endow machines with enough intelligence so that they already can act autonomously (to some degree). However, as the application domains for robots are increasing and robots are coming out of the factory halls, robotics research is increasingly raising ethical implications, related to the emerging interactions between robots and human beings.

Roboethics shares many "sensitive areas" with computer ethics, information ethics, bioethics and not only roboticists, but also sociologists, psychologists and philosophers are discussing the potentialities and limits of robotics to help building a better human society.

This workshop will increase robotics researchers' ethical awareness, in the context of the ever growing interdisciplinarity that characterizes the new generation of robotics research.

Goal: The theme of the ICRA 2011 conference is "Better Robots, Better Life", an expectation that robot technology will help build a better human society. But achieving this goal is not only a technical problem. Robotics applications raise ethical questions, related to emerging interactions between robots and humans. The application of ethics to machines, including robots and computer programs, has been typically limited the questions of whether designers and operators should take full responsibility of machines' actions. However, in the near future, the robotics is already developing machines with more open-ended behaviors and the ability to acquire new behaviors as a results of online learning during task execution. This kind of adaptation will likely limit the predictability of robot behaviors. Moreover, the types of interactions and the physical integrations of humans and robots are increasing rapidly. The social, economic, psychological, philosophical, and emotional impacts of this research are still unclear, however, and require careful analysis and attention by the research community. Among the objectives of the workshop is the opportunity of developing rules for roboethical quality insurance, aimed at preventing unethical uses of robotics research products. Long-term objectives include the increase of robotics researchers' ethical awareness, in the context of the ever growing interdisciplinarity that will characterize the new generation of robotics research.

Topics: Contributions are welcome on (but not limited to) the ethical, legal and societal aspects of the following topics:

• robot ethics (decision procedures/algorithms for moral behavior)
• technical dependability (availability; reliability; safety; security)
• military application of robotics (acceptability, advantages and risks, codes)
• health (robotics in surgery; robotics in health care, assistance, prosthetics and therapy)
• service (social robotics, personal assistants, companions)
• economy (replacing humans in the workplace; robotics and the job market)
• psychology (position of humans in the control hierarchy; robots and children)
• law (robots and liability; deployment of autonomously acting robots)
• environment (sustainable exploitation of resources; cleaning nuclear and toxic waste)

For more information, please see the web page at http://www.roboethics.org/icra2011/

Interested authors are encouraged to send their original contributions in the above or related areas to the organizers at info@roboethics.org

Extended abstracts (of two pages) or full papers of up to 6 pages (using the ICRA conference publication format) are welcome.

A Faustian Exchange: What is to be human in the era of Ubiquitous Technology?

A Faustian Exchange: What is to be human in the era of Ubiquitous Technology?

25^th Birthday Issue of AI & Society

We would like to invite you to submit a provisional title and abstract of your paper for the special 25th birthday issue of AI & Society. Please confirm by 15 November 2010 whether you will be submitting a paper.

We have had a very enthusiastic response to our discussions and contacts regarding the proposal to publish the special Birthday issue of AI & Society. The theme of the birthday issue, "A Faustian Exchange: What is to be human in the era of Ubiquitous Technology?," has been warmly welcomed. We very much appreciate the many useful suggestions that have been made.

What we are seeking articles that would review and reflect on developments over the recent past and do so in a more general manner than the usual theoretical and highly structured papers appearing in the journal. We are hoping the resultant articles can be wide ranging, visionary, reflective and opinionated in the best sense of the word, challenging and even provocative, and critically journalistic in form. This is not to suggest a dilution of academic rigour, but rather a way of presenting the important ideas in a form that is accessible not only to our current academic readership but also to those whose area of work is less highly specialised.

Timeline

• 15 November 2010: Confirmation of the submission of papers
• 15 December 2010: Title and Abstract (approx 500 words)
• 15 July 2011: Full articles (up to 6000 words)
• January-March 2012: Review process and submission to the publishers
• Publication: July/August 2012
• AI & Society 25th Birthday Conference/Workshop: Cambridge, UK Autumn 2012

Please pass this information to your colleagues and networks who may be interested in this call for papers.

[Thanks to Jason Borenstein for sending this to me - Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director]

Call for papers: Geographic Information Ethics

This Call for Papers comes from Francis Harvey, University of Minnesota:

After two years of engaging sessions, Dawn Wright and I have moved ahead with a call for papers in a 2011 Geographic Information Ethics session at the AAG conference in Seattle, WA. The general theme is still the breadth of interactions with ethical issues and geographic information. The list of sample topics points to this breadth.

• case studies, curriculum development, or the pedagogy of teaching GIS ethical issues;
• issues of privacy, surveillance, inequity, erroneous or inappropriate data concerning geographic technologies;
• codes of ethics and conduct of professional organizations;
• GIS professional development;
• reflections on the changing nature of ethical issues in GIS&T
• ethics of data publication and peer review

This breadth has been advantageous in developing important discussions and creating a forum for work that engages ethical dimensions of geographic information technologies. Following last year's presentations and discussions, we have added the topic of data publication and peer review to the list.

At this point we write to bring this session to your attention and see if you may be interested in presenting. Also, if you could pass this notice about the call to colleagues working on ethics and geographic information, we'd appreciate your help in identifying other participants for the session.

The full call is online at: http://web.me.com/fhap13/AAG_GIS-Ethics_Sessions/GIS_Ethics_Sessions.html

I'm always happy to post relevant announcements.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Call for papers: Ethics and Affective Computing

Call for Papers

IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing

Special Issue on Ethics and Affective Computing

The pervasive presence of automated and autonomous systems necessitates the rapid growth of a relatively new area of inquiry called machine ethics. If machines are going to be turned loose on their own to kill and heal, explore and decide, the need for designing them to be moral becomes pressing. This need, in turn, penetrates to the very foundations of ethics as robot designers strive to build systems that comply. Fuzzy intuitions will not do when computational clarity is required. So, machine ethics also asks the discipline of ethics to make itself clear. The truth is that at present we do not know how to make it so. Rule-based approaches are being tried even in light of an acknowledged difficulty to formalize moral behavior, and it is already common to hear that introducing affects into machines may be necessary in order to make machines behave morally. From this perspective, affective computing may be morally required by machine ethics.

On the other hand, building machines with artificial affects might carry with it negative ethical consequences. In order to make humans more willing to accept robots and other automated computational devices, creating them to display emotion will be a help, since if we like them, we will, no doubt, be more willing to welcome them. We might even pay dearly to have them. But do artificial affects deceive? Will they catch us with our defenses down, and do we have to worry about Plato's caveat in the Republic that one of the best ways to be unjust is to appear just? Automated agents that seem like persons might appear congenial, even as any moral regard is ignored, making them dangerous culprits indistinguishable from automated "friends." In this light, machine ethics might demand that we exercise great caution in using affective computing. In radical cases, it might even demand that we not use it at all.

We would seem to have here a quandary. No doubt there are others. The purpose of this volume is to explore the range of ethical issues related to affective computing. Is affective computing necessary for making artificial agents moral? If so, why and how? Where does affective computing require moral caution? In what cases do benefits outweigh the moral risks? Etc.

Invited Authors:

• Roddy Cowie (Queen's University, Belfast)
• Luciano Floridi (University of Hertfordshire and University of Oxford)
• Matthias Scheutz (Tufts University)

Papers must not have been previously published, with the exception that substantial extensions of conference papers can be considered. The authors will be required to follow the Author’s Guide for manuscript submission to the IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing at http://www.computer.org/portal/web/tac/author. Papers are due by March 1st, 2011, and should be submitted electronically at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/taffc-cs. Please select the "SI - Ethics 2011" manuscript type upon submission. For further information, please contact guest editor, Anthony Beavers at afbeavers@gmail.com.

Uberveillance and the Social Implications of Microchip Implants

Professor Katina Michael and Dr M.G. Michael, University of Wollongong, Australia,  have issued a call for chapter details to be published in a book entitled Uberveillance and the Social Implications of Microchip Implants: Emerging Technologies.

Professor and Dr. Michael define Uberveillance as "an omnipresent electronic surveillance facilitated by technology that makes it possible to embed surveillance devices in the human body. These embedded technologies can take the form of traditional pacemakers, radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag and transponder implants, biomems and nanotechnology devices."

From the call:

Submission Procedure
Researchers, practitioners and members of the general public are invited to submit on or before September 15, 2010, a 2 page chapter proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by November 10, 2010 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by January 30, 2011. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. Contributors may also be requested to serve as reviewers for this project.

* * *

Important Dates
September 15, 2010: Proposal Submission Deadline
November 10, 2010: Notification of Acceptance
January 30, 2011: Full Chapter Submission
March 1, 2011: Review Results Returned
May 1, 2011: Final Chapter Submission

Please see the unusually detailed and helpful call for more details.

Disclosure: I am one of the 29 members of the Editorial Advisory Board.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

2011 Conference of the Society for Philosophy and Technology: Technology and Security

From the conference Web site:

The University of North Texas is proud to host the 17th international biennial conference of the Society for Philosophy and Technology. SPT is the leading international organization devoted to the philosophical examination of technology. The 2011 conference theme is Technology and Security. We encourage contributions that examine the role of technology in fostering and sustaining security as well as creating or exacerbating insecurities. The theme of security suggests a wide range of issues such as national security, social security (poverty, age, disability), cyber security, food security, environmental security, energy security, etc. SPT 2011 will, of course, welcome contributions on any philosophical dimension of technology -- from the perspective of any academic discipline as well as perspectives outside of the academy.

Thanks to Colin Allen for bringing this to my attention.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Call for Papers: Ethical and social aspects of mobiles/ubiquitous computing

The Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics is seeking papers for a thematic issue on ethical and social aspects of mobiles/ubiquitous computing. I have this announcement from Colin Allen, to whom my thanks.

Guest editors: Charles Ess, May Thorseth and Johnny Hartz Søraker

Twenty-five years ago, William Gibson presented a futuristic account of “cyberspace:” This space contained a complete virtual world so rich and complex as to be capable of replacing a real world and embodied existence. What was once clearly science fiction now becomes ever more the reality of our lives as increasingly intertwined with the multiple interactions made possible by computer-based communication networks. We invite papers that help us explore the various ethical and social dimensions of the contemporary world of ubiquitous computing. We are interested in the transformative powers of various technologies like mobiles, computer games and social networking services. Possible topics include: changing senses of selves, social interactions, privacy, intellectual property; the blurring of borderlines of virtual and real social interaction, online and offline presence and interactions among humans. Papers should include examples of contemporary technologies, although speculative thought experiments are also encouraged.

Submit your paper to: redaktor@etikkipraksis.org
Deadline: July 1, 2010