Archive for EU
against landmines in the EU
Posted in Kids, pictures, Travel with tags Anti- Personnel Mine Ban Convention, Anti-Personnel Landmines, armed conflict, conduct of hostilities, Convention on Cluster Munitions, Estonia, EU, European Union, Explosive Remnants of War, Finland, Geneva Conventions, international humanitarian law, landmines, Latvia, Lithuania, Means and Methods of Warfare, Mine Ban Treaty, Ottawa convention, Poland, Russia, Russian invasion, Ukraine on July 26, 2025 by xi'an
Congrats to Arnak Dalalyan for his ERC advanced grant!
Posted in Statistics, University life with tags CREST, ERC, ERC Advanced Grant, EU, Europe, European Research Council, generative AI, generative models, Horizon Europe, Statistics on July 17, 2025 by xi'an
Choose Europe for Science
Posted in pictures, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags @ScientistTrump, academic position, Argentina, Choose Europe, ERC, EU, Europe, European Commission, European Research Council, Javier Milei, La Sorbonne, Maria Leptin, public funding, super-grant, Trump administration, Ursula von der Leyen, US politics on May 14, 2025 by xi'an
Data science ethics [book review]
Posted in Books, Statistics, University life with tags accountability, AI, applied mathematics, Belgium, bias, book review, CHANCE, China, Chinese edition, data encryption, data science, differential privacy, discrimination, ethics, EU, European Parliament, explicability, fairness, FAT, federated learning, Google, hashing, homomorphic encryption, OUP, Oxford University Press, preprocessing, quantum computing, record linkage, slides, statistical literacy, statistical modelling, SVM, transparency, University of Antwerp on May 5, 2025 by xi'an
Data science ethics (concepts, techniques and cautionary tales), by David Martens, was published in 2022 by Oxford University Press. The book is inspired by the author’s course on Data Science and ethics he has been teaching at the University of Antwerp. (With a link to his slides.) The 255p book proceeds by decomposing the ethics of data science into its different steps: data gathering (Chap. 2), data preprocessing (Chap. 3), modelling (Chap. 4), evaluation (Chap. 5), and deployment (Chap. 6). Following the `FAT Flow Framework´, where FAT stands for fairness, accountability, and transparency.
Do not expect much maths, stats, or anything quantitative: this book is mostly about concepts, even though some (mostly well-known) illustrations are provided. Chapter 2 includes a description of encryption (with homomorphic encryption treated in Chapter 4). And somewhat improbably quantum computing. Differential privacy gets a few pages with not a single formula (until Chapter 4, again).
Chapter 3 covers k-anonymity, record linkage, reidentification, (through cautionary tales) and discrimination through biases in the (learning) dataset. Chapter 4 is defining ε differential privacy with the Laplace randomization as a possible implementation and with no critical stance on the limitations of the concept. The computation limitations of homomorphic encryption are more clearly pointed out. Federated learning is only quickly mentioned. The section about measuring fairness and reducing bias implies that some prior knowledge is available about whom is potentially discriminated and which covariates to add to the model. The last section on explicability of predictions is worthwhile in signalling the difficulty with most (black box) AI but the example opposing an SVM model to a logistic model is not tremendously convincing in that neither model is true.
Chapter 5 addresses the crucial challenge of ethical evaluation in a rather verbose and vague manner. For instance, with no instruction on how to resist adversarial attacks. Or criticising p-hacking and multiple testing while missing the elephant in the room (p-values!). Drifting from the topic when discussing the misdeeds of Diederik Stapel. Most of the same goes about Chapter 6 and its take on ethical deployment, when going through examples such as Google’s policies in China. Or general musing on the impact of AI on societal inequalities (with mentions of companies and CEOs who have since then back-pedalled on their ethical engagement). These chapters are lacking in tools and (more) practical recommendations.
One interesting aspect of the book is the attention paid to the EU(ropean) aspect of these concerns, through the GDPR (General DAta Protection Regulations) adopted by the European Parliament in 2016. (There is also a brief mention of China’s regulations, but no details beyond a reference. Maybe the Chinese edition differs.)
and it only gets worse [the return]
Posted in Kids, pictures, Travel with tags baby Trump, EU, European Union, genocide, history, immigration, MAGA, racism, Russia, Russian invasion, Supreme Court, tariffs, Trump administration, Ukraine, United States of America, USA, war crimes on May 1, 2025 by xi'an
“The EU has been very tough over the years and was formed to really do damage to the United States in trade through a little bit of a monopoly situation to create a unified force against the United States.” DJ Trump
“We need to get better at treating [deportation] like a business, like (Amazon) Prime, but with human beings.” ICE Director Todd Lyons
“The EU make [sic] it so difficult, the standards and the tests as they drop a bowling ball on the top of your car from 20 feet up in the air and if there’s a little dent, they say no, I’m sorry, your car doesn’t qualify.”DJ Trump
“We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture” JD Vance
“I’m telling you, these countries are calling us up kissing my ass.” DJ Trump
“The implications of the [Trump] government’s position [are] that not only noncitizens but also United States citizens could be taken off the streets, forced onto planes and confined to foreign prisons with no opportunity for redress if judicial review is denied unlawfully before removal. History is no stranger to such lawless regimes, but this nation’s system of laws is designed to prevent, not enable, their rise.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor
“I think [the Russian missile bombing of Sumy] was terrible and I was told [the Russian attackers] made a mistake, but I think it’s a horrible thing. I think the whole war is a horrible thing. This war would never have started if I were president. That war is a shame.” DJ Trump
