Publications related to Society

Diversity and neocolonialism in Big Data research: Avoiding extractivism while struggling with paternalism

The extractive logic of Big Data-driven technology and knowledge production has raised serious concerns. While most criticism initially focused on the impacts on Western societies, attention is now increasingly turning to the consequences for communities i ...

Sage Publications Inc2023

Nine recommendations for the governance of AI systems

Marie-Valentine Renée Agnès Florin

Some governance functions traditionally performed by humans are increasingly informed and sometimes automatically executed by machine learning algorithms (governance by machine learning) to benefit society. Therefore, it is necessary to think also about th ...

EPFL2022

Risk governance and the rise of deepfakes

Touradj Ebrahimi

Deepfakes first came to prominence less than five years ago. Since then, they have surged in quantity and quality, becoming both a source of viral entertainment and of concern about the dark side of digital life. In this article, we provide a risk governan ...

International Risk Governance Center2021

Liminality, Ephemerality, and Marginality with Impact Makerspaces in the Chinese Urban Fabric: Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing, and Addis Ababa

Monique Stéphanie Bolli

In the last few years, narratives and imaginaries about maker cultures as well as makerspaces have been flourishing in Chinese cities. With its fast-changing pace, the global maker movement expresses unique features in China and integrates aspects of grass ...

EPFL2020

Ethics in Research

Science is in revolution. The formidable scientific and technological developments of the last century have dramatically transformed the way in which we conduct scientific research. The knowledge and applications that science produces has profound conseque ...

2019

PREC 2019: Personal Robots for Exercising and Coaching

Ayberk Özgür, Arzu Güneysu Özgür

Exercising is strongly recommended for prevention and treatment of pathologies with high prevalence such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and diabetes. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that insufficient physical activity is one of the leading ...

IEEE2019

Towards Institutions for Mixed Human-Robot Societies

Alcherio Martinoli, Stevan Tomic, Alicja Barbara Roelofsen

We report an exploration into normative reasoning for robots in human societies using the concept of institutions. ...

ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY2018

Towards Norm Realization in Institutions Mediating Human-Robot Societies

Alcherio Martinoli, Stevan Tomic, Alicja Barbara Roelofsen

Social norms are the understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society. As such, they regulate communication, cooperation and other social interactions. Robots capable of reasoning about social norms are more likely to be recognized as an ext ...

2018

L'événement proxémique : étude des relations de circulation entre piétons aux heures de pointe à Delhi, Los Angeles, Paris et Tokyo

Lucas François Tiphine

In a context of traffic networks saturation related to urbanisation acceleration, this research is aimed at contributing to the scientific debate on this issue by building a model to describe dynamic pedestriansâ physical distances regulation behaviours ...

EPFL2018

How Computer Science Risks to Lose its Innocence, and Should Attempt to Take Responsibility

Karl Aberer

Computer science is playing a driving role in transforming today's society through information technology. In this transformation we observe power shifts increasingly strengthening centralised organisations, which are negatively perceived by many people. W ...

Ieee Computer Soc2017

Grand Challenges for Global Brain Sciences

Sean Lewis Hill, Miguel Nicolelis, Corrado Cali

The next grand challenges for society and science are in the brain sciences. A collection of 60+ scientists from around the world, together with 10+ observers from national, private, and foundations, spent two days together discussing the top challenges th ...

2016

From Documents to Structured Data: First Milestones of the Garzoni Project

Frédéric Kaplan, Maud Ehrmann, Giovanni Colavizza, Orlin Biserov Topalov

Led by an interdisciplinary consortium, the Garzoni project undertakes the study of apprenticeship, work and society in early modern Venice by focusing on a specific archival source, namely the Accordi dei Garzoni from the Venetian State Archives. The proj ...

2016

Statistical physics of vaccination

Marcel Salathé, Zhen Wang

Historically, infectious diseases caused considerable damage to human societies, and they continue to do so today. To help reduce their impact, mathematical models of disease transmission have been studied to help understand disease dynamics and inform pre ...

Elsevier Science Bv2016

A view on global urbanization : spatial networks, urban scaling and remote sensing

Emanuele Strano

It is widely recognized that global urbanization is one the most urgent issue of our time. Any problem related to global issues, such as climate change, social and environmental sustainability and the future of our society, is somehow related to cities and ...

EPFL2016

L’invention partagée (Michel Lussault, L’avènement du Monde)

Jacques Lévy

"L’avènement du Monde" by Michel Lussault offers a substantial and innovative spatial theory of an object, the World. Space is addressed both as a technical system and a society, and each of these approaches generates an overall, panoramic view. In additio ...

Association Espaces Temps2015

En quête d'habitat : choix résidentiels et différenciation des modes de vie familiaux en Suisse

Marie-Paule Thomas

This doctoral thesis is based on the observation that the individualization of society that is taking place today has led to new differentiations within the domains of lifestyle and residential choice. Our main hypothesis was that lifestyle influences resi ...

EPFL2011

Violences, sécurités et territoires : transformations urbaines à Barcelone et Bogota

Charlotte Boisteau

The phenomenon of urban violence and the resulting sense of insecurity are at the very heart of contemporary urban dynamics. In order to respond to the growing public demand for security, various public, private, and community measures contribute to the ne ...

EPFL2009

Interaction maximization and the observed distribution of urban populations: An agent-based model of humanity's metric condition

Pierre-Emmanuel Dessemontet, André Ourednik, Antonio Da Cunha, Jean-Bernard Racine

The very existence of urban formations on all inhabited continents and throughout the history of mankind since the 3rd millennium B.C. leads to suppose a tendency of some structured societies to maximize interaction by minimizing physical distance. Were th ...

2007