The Differential Impacts of Human Capital and Infrastructure on the Sustainable Development Goals
This study looks at country-level data to explore the dynamics among human capital, infrastructure, and a country’s progress toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Utilizing the confirmatory factor analysis method, I develop a new Infrastructure Index and combine it with the World Bank’s dataset on Human Capital Index to evaluate the relative impact…
Impact of climate indicators on the carbon footprint of data centers
Carbon emissions are usually associated with the fossil fuel and transportation industries, yet our online activities also have a significant carbon footprint. It may seem counterintuitive, but data centers account for around 2% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. It is roughly in line with the global airline industry, and not far behind the chemical…
The Evidence-Based Policymaking Act and Privacy
Abstract: The legislative act on The Foundations of Evidence-Based Policymaking created a framework for the centralization of statistical information collected by dozens of US federal agencies across the country and imposed responsibilities for sharing that data within the government, as well as with researchers and private entities. One of the main outcomes of the act…
A Critical Review of UNEP’s Food Waste Index
In 2015, 193 UN member states undersigned the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which consists of seventeen interlinked Sustainable Development Goals. It is a comprehensive development framework that also focuses on “responsible consumption and production.” However, it is a strategic-level document, which did not take into account the operational-level challenges for developing indicators to measure…
On Facial Recognition Technology
Originally published on Intersect: The Stanford Journal of Science, Technology, and Society. Since the beginning of the 2000s, Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) has become significantly more accurate and more accessible. Both government and commercial entities use it in increasingly innovative approaches. News agencies use it to spot celebrities at big events. Car companies install it…
From cybernetics to posthumanism: Biological humans vs synthetic machines
Cyberspace, cybersecurity, cyberinfrastructure and cyborg are some of the most popular words in modern vocabulary. If we look up the etymology of the prefix cyber, it is an abbreviation of cybernetics, which in turn traces its roots back to a Greek word “kybernētēs” that means steersman, governor or pilot. In the mid XX century cybernetics…
Terrorists’ Quest on the Dark Web
Two decades after the Global War on Terror was launched, the terrorist organizations that rallied around the Salafi-jihadist ideology are defeated. Their malicious plots are proactively disrupted, their most recognized leaders are eliminated and they are forced to operate from hideouts, following the defeat of the ISIS. However, the ideology is surviving by far more…