Browsing by Subject "Autonomy"
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Item Busted mugs and bad lighting: Balancing First Amendment interests against claims for control of one's identity(2014-05) Batchelder, CassandraBooking photographs, also known as "mug shots," have served law enforcement purposes for centuries. Mug shots also dominate media coverage of crime. These images attract readers, as tabloid publications and reputable newspapers alike maintain online databases of mug shots. Observing this popularity, Internet entrepreneurs saw an opportunity to make a profit. Mug shot website proprietors began to "scrape" mug shots from local law enforcement agencies and post the images along with the arrested individual's name and reason for arrest online. To make a profit, sites began to charge fees to remove individuals' mug shots from their websites. This practice sparked several reactions. Search engines like Google changed their algorithms to push mug shot websites further back in results pages. Payment service providers began to refuse to do business with the mug shot websites. State legislatures began passing laws to make this business practice illegal, often restricting or placing conditions on access to once-public mug shots in the process. Individuals began to sue these websites, arguing the sites' use of their mug shots was for a commercial purpose that violated the individuals' right of publicity. In response, mug shot websites have largely adapted their business practices, now only collecting revenue from displaying mug shots alongside advertising or collecting subscription fees.The reactions to mug shot websites' new business practices raise concerns for all content creators. Restricted access to mug shots through a patchwork of state laws about their use and right of publicity lawsuits based on mug shot websites provide a lens through which to view the conflict between individuals' interest in controlling information about themselves and content creators' interest in autonomously deciding what to publish pursuant to the First Amendment. This thesis begins by discussing the history of mug shots, the rise of mug shot websites, and the reactions to these websites. The thesis then traces the legal roots of two of these responses: the legislative approaches to mug shots and the development of the right of publicity. Next, this thesis considers a theoretical framework through which to view both sides of this debate--an individual's autonomy interest in controlling information and a publisher's interest in making autonomous publishing decisions. Then, this thesis considers how courts have resolved the conflict between these positions. Finally, this thesis concludes that going forward, a unified approach, rather than a patchwork of state laws addressing harms that arise from uses of information or a tort claim without an underlying theory, should govern conflicts between individuals and publishers. A unified approach that values the autonomy of both parties best balances the two positions. Courts should consider the totality of the circumstances in which the use of information about an individual appears to determine whether the First Amendment interest outweighs the individual's autonomy interest. Only then will a manageable approach to the use of an individuals' information emerge--one that protects both First Amendment interests and provides meaningful protection to individuals from future harms stemming from new uses of technology.Item The effect of small learning communities on indicators of student progress.(2009-06) Bemel, Cheryl StoneThe purpose of this study was to examine the effects of two different small learning community (SLC) models on indicators of student progress. Participants were 100 students enrolled in a large urban high school in a Midwestern state as well as 23 of their teachers. Of the two small learning community models studied, one was reportedly a high-functioning SLC while the other model was considered poorly-functioning. Students from the poorly functioning SLC were placed into the higher-functioning SLC and comparisons were made. After controlling for pre-test measurement error, increases in attendance were associated with placement in a higher-functioning SLC after one year. Qualitative analysis provided further support to the finding; students' perceptions of their school experience improved after re-placement. Implications of results in terms of the efficacy of SLCs, future directions for SLC research, and the importance of relationships in the educational arena are discussed.Item How Perceptions of Influence Tactic Effectiveness and Relationship Norms Predict Agents’ Decision to Influence their Partner’s Health Behavior(2023-08) Jaeger, MargaretIt is well established that close relationships, particularly romantic relationships, can have a powerful impact on physical health, and that social influence plays a key role in this association. However, research has focused on the health and relationship outcomes associated with different types of influence use, and not on how influence agents (i.e., the person enacting influence) decide when and how to influence their target (i.e., the person having the influence enacted upon them). The present work addresses this gap in the literature by establishing three key tactic-specific variables (influence type, perceived tactic effectiveness, and tactic normativeness) that play a role in an agent’s decision of whether or not to use a certain influence tactic. Additionally, two key context variables (health threat severity and relationship stability) were included to examine whether the associations among the tactic-specific variables shift in different health and relational contexts. Three experimental studies were conducted using an iterative experimental vignette methodology in which the health and relational context was initially fixed (Study 1), then the health context was manipulated (Study 2), and finally the health and relational context was manipulated (Study 3). Throughout all three studies, the three tactic-specific variables were manipulated to demonstrate how each variable affected perceived likelihood that the agent would enact a specific influence tactic. In each study, participants first indicated the likelihood of the agent enacting a given influence tactic and then, having been told the tactic had been enacted, rated the relational and health motivations behind why the agent had chosen to enact the tactic. Across all three studies, the tactic-specific variables emerged as consistent predictors of perceptions of likelihood of influence use, with more normative, effective, and supportive tactics being associated with greater likelihood of use. However, the predictive patterns of the tactic-specific variables did not shift as expected with the inclusion of the context variables. Overall, health motivation was more impacted by the context variables, and relational motivation was more impacted by tactic-specific variables.Item Learning from Pixels: Image-Centric State Representation Reinforcement Learning for Goal Conditioned Surgical Task Automation(2023-11) Gowdru Lingaraju, SrujanOver the past few years, significant exploration has occurred in the field of automating surgical tasks through off-policy Reinforcement Learning (RL) methods. These methods have witnessed notable advancements in enhancing sample efficiency (such as with the use of Hindsight Experience Replay - HER) and addressing the challenge of exploration (as seen in Imitation Learning approaches). While these advancements have boosted RL model performance, they all share a common reliance on accurate ground truth state observations. This reliance poses a substantial hurdle, particularly in real-world scenarios where capturing an accurate state representation becomes notably challenging.This study addresses the aforementioned challenge by exploiting an Asymmetric Actor-Critic framework while addressing the issues of sample efficiency and exploration burden by using HER and behavior cloning. Within this framework, the Critic component is trained on the complete state information, whereas the Actor component is trained on partial state observations, thus diminishing the necessity for pre-trained state representation models. The proposed methodology is evaluated within the context of SurRoL, a surgical task simulation platform. The experimental results showcased that the RL model, operating with this configuration, achieves task performance akin to models trained with complete ground truth state representations. Additionally, we delve into the necessity for Sim-to-Real transfer methods and elucidate some of the formidable challenges inherent in this process and present a comprehensive pipeline that addresses the intricacies of domain adaptation. This research thus presents a promising avenue to mitigate the reliance on pre-trained models for state representation in the pursuit of effective surgical task automation.Item No Harm, No Foul? Exploring the Harm Caused by Data Breaches(2015-05) Ashenmacher, GeorgeThis thesis explores the harm that occurs to individuals whose data has been exposed to a third party as a result of a data breach, but which has not been used to commit identity theft or fraud. The vast majority of Americans disclose their Personally Identifiable Information (PII) to private entities almost everyday. Yet this information is increasingly insecure in those hands, as a recent rise in data breaches makes evident. Law responded to this problem, in part, by criminalizing hacking and identity theft. But have individuals suffered harm when their data has been made vulnerable? Where the hacker has not used the PII to commit fraud, American courts have concluded that there is simply no harm for them to redress. This thesis examines the premise that individuals have not suffered harm unless they have sustained a concrete financial injury. Part I engages scholarly literature to explain the concept of autonomy. This Part develops how each of liberty, dignity and privacy protect the value of autonomy in American law. Part II then applies each of these concepts in the data breach context to show that the resulting harm is to an individual's autonomy. Unlike other instances in which autonomy is vulnerable, here neither privacy nor liberty can be convincingly used as a legal tool to protect it. Instead, the proper tool is the invocation of dignitary harms. Faced with an uncertainty about how their information may be used, victims lose awareness of their negative freedom. This harm deserves legal redress. Finally, Part III argues for the practical utility of the harm inquiry. Recently, the FTC has been challenged to identify what, if any, injuries befall consumers whose data has been made vulnerable where there has been no identity theft. This thesis urges the recognition of the harm as one to individual's dignity. Doing so refocuses the inquiry against the companies who hold PII, instead of the hacker who acquires it. Doing so also justifies FTC actions against such companies.Item Non-Ideal Autonomy in Relationships of Care(2017-08) Swanson, KathrynIn moral and political philosophy, autonomy is generally theorized as a right exercised by independent, self-reflective, rational, adult persons. Feminist philosophers have challenged this picture by emphasizing that critical reflection as well as relationships and dependencies are integral to what it means to exercise autonomy. This work addresses the implications of necessitating cognitive processes such as critical reflection for autonomy in legal guardianships. In a guardianship, a court determines that a person (i.e., the ward) is ‘incapable’ of legal decision-making and appoints someone else (i.e., the guardian) to make decisions on her behalf. This is problematic because a state bill of rights statute may simultaneously require that a ward’s autonomy be respected by the guardian. Here, there is a gap between our philosophical conceptions of autonomy and how real cognitively diverse people experience it. In response to this gap, a non-ideal approach treats autonomy as a fundamental need rather than a right, suspends cognitive ideals and instead attends to diverse experiences of it. Approaching autonomy in this way has the potential to more meaningfully inform expectations of care within legal guardianships.Item Shelter for good?: examining the ethical issues of housing first for homeless substance abusers(2013-08) Barrett, Tyler DaneIn the past fifteen years, the guiding philosophies used in addressing chronic homelessness have undergone a radical shift in approach. Whereas nearly all shelters once stipulated substance addicted or mentally ill residents must undergo treatment for chemical dependency and mental illness prior to admittance, in recent years many cities across the United States and abroad have adopted a "housing first" model. This approach treats housing as a basic human right and allows homeless individuals immediate and indefinite access to shelter and related resources without requirements of treatment, sobriety, or abstinence. This paper examines the establishment, proliferation, and evolution of housing first programs, their efficacy and the empirical research that has been collected in recent years, and the persisting ethical dilemmas and considerations that need to be addressed.