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Professionalism/Andy Rubin, Google, and Sexual Harassment in Tech

Andy Rubin's Professional Career
Andy Rubin earned a Bachelor's of Science in Computer Science from Utica College in 1986. He then worked for Carl Zeiss AG, a manufacturing company, and later Apple as a software engineer. Following a series of startups, Rubin founded Android in 2003. Android is an operating system for touchscreen and mobile devices. Today, it powers roughly eighty-seven percent of the world's smartphone and over 2.5 billion active devices. In 2005, Google purchased Android for fifty million dollars. Prior to the purchase, Google had little mobile experience and primarily focused on its search engine capabilities and developing apps for other phones. With an operating system, however, it would be able to control the distribution of its applications and offer a more perfected service. Additionally, the experience and talent that Rubin and his team had played a large role in Google's decision, since it bolstered the company's image as technology focused. Initially, Android was resistant to fully integrating with Google and remained largely run as a separate entity. The iPhone's initial success increased the demand for Android as phone providers scrambled to offer a competing product. In 2009, Motorola developed the first Android-based phone, which brought Android its first successful product and global attention. By 2011 Android had become key to Google's business and Rubin had been promoted to senior vice president while he continued to run Android.

Andy Rubin's Sexual Misconduct and Google's Response
Early in 2012, Rubin began dating an employee from Android. The relationship was consensual and both were married. By 2013, she wished to end it and met with Rubin in a hotel. After Rubin forced her to have oral sex, the relationship ended. She waited until 2014 to inform Google's human resources department and officials of the assault, which led Google to open an investigation. On September 2014, weeks into the investigation, Rubin was awarded a stock grant of $150 million for his contributions to Google. While stock grants are not unusual for high-ranking employees, the amount was extremely high. The grant was approved by Google's leadership development and compensation committee but it is unknown if they had any awareness of the investigation. Following the investigation, even though Rubin maintained he was innocent, Google's co-founder and CEO Larry Page decided he should leave. However, they parted ways amicably and Rubin received an unusually large exit package of $90 million. The deal prevented Rubin from working with any of Google's rivals or publicly disparaging the company. Rubin cited a desire to work for a startup venture as his reason for leaving and Google did not inform anyone of the investigation. In a public statement, Page said, "I want to wish Andy all the best with what's next. With Android he created something truly remarkable - with a billion-plus happy users." Following his departure from Google, Rubin went on to work on multiple startups through his newly founded venture capital Playground Global. Today, Playground Global's portfolio includes companies that have been bought by Intel and Amazon and has raised over $800 million. Google was one of the initial investors of Playground Global. Rubin also founded Essential, a maker of Android phones.

David Drummond and Jennifer Blakely
Rubin's sexual misconduct was not the first in Google and others were also silenced. Throughout its history, Google has fostered an abusive culture in regards to sexual harassment. Co-founder Sergey Brin had a consensual extramarital affair in 2014, while Page dated one of the company's first engineers. In 2004, Google’s Chief Counsel David Drummond and Jennifer Blakely, a senior contract manager in the legal department, began an extramarital affair. In 2007 they had a child, after which Google told them managers were discouraged of having relationships with subordinates. Blakely was transferred to sales and eventually left Google. Drummond is now Alphabet's chief legal counsel and chairman of Google's venture capital fund, CapitalG, and has gained roughly $190 million in stock options. In a blog post Blakely wrote, "Women that I worked with at Google who have spoken to me since the New York Times article have told me how offended they were by the blatant womanizing and philandering that became common practice among some (but certainly not all) executives, starting at the very top."

Richard DeVaul and Star Simpson
Richard DeVaul was a manager at GoogleX, Google's research and development arm, in 2013, when he interviewed 24-year-old Star Simpson for a job. During the interview DeVaul hinted at being in an open relationship with his wife and invited Simpson to a music festival in Nevada. Simpson assumed it to be an opportunity to further her probability of getting the job and met DeVaul there. There, DeVaul asked her to remove her shirt and offered her a back rub. After refusing, DeVaul eventually gave her a neck rub. She heard back weeks later that she had not gotten the job without any further explanation. Google's HR claims to have taken appropriate corrective action but does not explain further what that was.

Amit Singhal
In 2015 a Google employee claimed Amit Singhal had groped her at a work happy hour function. At the time, Singhal was a senior vice president. Following an investigation, Google found the claim credible. While they did not fire him, they accepted his resignation and signed an unusually large exit package that did not allow him to work for any competitors. Singhal stated he was taking time off to be with family and went on to become head of engineering at Uber.

Google Walkouts
After the 2018 Time article, Google employees around the world staged walkouts on November 1, 2018 to protest what they claimed was a workplace culture that was turning a blind eye to sexual harassment and discrimination. Walking out of their offices at 11:10am, 20,000 people worldwide - including more than 1,000 people from Google’s headquarters in California - participated in the protests. Employees feared being fired for participating in the walkouts but joined the protest anyway to demonstrate its importance. The participants agreed that the Times Investigation was definitely the catalyst for the walkouts but still emphasized that the protests had been a long time coming. One of the main topics they were protesting was how unfair it was for women who have been attacked to have to speak to the people above them in order to make a change happen, who were often their abusers. The organizers demanded google leadership to take concrete steps to fix the company’s internal corruption, including an end to forced arbitration, which prohibits workers from suing an employer in cases such as sexual harassment.

Google's Response to the Walkouts
The day before the walkouts, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai actually voiced his support for the protests, saying that “employees will have the support they need if they wish to participate”. Nonetheless, Rebecca Rivers and Laurence Berland were fired shortly after participating in the walkouts. The two women were terminated for allegedly accessing internal information they shouldn’t have had in the course of their worker activism. Rivers and Berland objected to those claims, saying the documents in question were not sensitive and that monitoring public calendar events does not break any corporate rules. Following their firing, around 200 Google employees and protestors rallied outside Google’s San Francisco office demanding the company reinstate Rivers and Berland. Google was accused of pushing other employees out of the company who helped organize the walkouts as well.

One week after the protests, Google announced new policies around sexual harassment and diversity that reflected the demands from the protestors who had met with Google's leadership. Among many changes, one of Google’s key alterations involved making arbitration optional for individual sexual harassment and sexual assault claims. This change gave employees the ability to take misconduct claims to court rather than privately settling them. The organizers of the walkout, however, stated that Google still ignored several of the core demands they put forward. As Google did not specifically address a number of other issues being protested, protestors remained displeased with the company’s actions.

Sexual Harassment in Tech and Tech-Bro Culture
According to a 2018 survey by FTI Consulting and Mine the Gap, nearly half of women in tech had experienced or witnessed harassment in the last five years and a third had experienced or witnessed unwanted physical contact in the last year. The numbers show a common theme of tolerance in the industry as companies and executives often overlook these intolerable acts. Specifically, two cases at Uber show how firms have failed to take appropriate corrective action in the event of sexual harassment.

Sexual Harassment at Uber
Uber recently agreed to establish a $4.4 million fund to settle charges of sexual harassment and retaliation brought by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The charges come from an investigation that began in 2017 when Uber was involved in several major scandals, including Susan Fowler's experience with the firm. Although Uber has been in the spotlight recently, cases of sexual harassment have occured at the firm for years, including the 2015 case of Eyal Gutentag. In both Fowler's and Gutentag's cases, Uber grossly mishandled the situation for both the victim and the perpetrator. These two cases are summarized below. These cases highlight different ways Uber has perpetuated a culture of tolerance towards sexual harassment. In Fowler's case, Uber demonstrated a total lack of support for the victim and complete neglect of the perpetrator's behavior. In Gutentag's case, although Uber showed support of the victim by terminating Gutentag for his actions, their non-disclosure of his actions displays a tolerant attitude towards perpetrators of sexual harassment. Gutentag was able to find a new job within months of his termination and was able to further his career with few consequences for his actions.

Tech-Bro Culture
The previous examples showcase how a company can mishandle sexual misconduct after it occurs, however, it is important to understand why sexual harassment occurs so frequently in tech. One driving factor is the existence of "tech-bro culture," which has been cited at Google to have "allowed the daily sexual harassment of a female software engineer." In Silicon Valley, the lines between personal life and professional life are blurred. Investors meet entrepreneurs in informal locations such as bars & restaurants, bosses attend parties & music festivals with their inferiors, and employers allow drinking of alcohol in the workplace. This "tech-bro culture" not only creates opportunities for sexual harassment to take place, it also permeates into office social dynamics. One former Facebook employee spoke that "if you party with the right people... you’re going to be part of this boys’ club." She goes on to describe how this "boys' club" mindset strips away accountability in the workplace as people are too worried about their social standing in the company to speak out against a colleague.

The Effects of an Enabling Culture
Sexism and a history of tolerance of sexual harassment have made the tech industry a less attractive place for women to pursue their careers. Bethanye Blount, a veteran software engineer, cites tech conferences as "breeding grounds for unwanted sexual advances and assaults." When one considers the physical and emotional dangers that this type of environment engenders, combined with the fact that "the prevailing advice is to stay silent and avoid repercussions," it is not difficult to understand why "women leave tech at more than twice the rate men do."

Comments on Professionalism
It goes without saying that Andy Rubin and other perpetrators of sexual harassment do not act as professionals as they put their selfish desires above all morals or ethics, breaching the trust one expects in a professional relationship. Google and Uber both have an ethical responsibility to act in the best interests of all of their employees and their mishandling of sexual harassment cases has shown that they have not been acting as professionals and only exacerbated the issue in the tech industry. Lastly, the Google walkout organizers and participants are true examples of what it means to be professionals. They put their profession before their careers and risked their jobs to fight for something noble.


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English-Hanzi/Weight control can promote healthy blood sugar levels

Weight control can promote healthy blood sugar levels and has been shown to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes.

控制体重可以促进健康的血糖水平，并且已经显示出可以减少2型糖尿病的风险.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Professionalism/Medicine, AI, and Professional Discretion

Introduction to Medical Ethics
The role of medical professionals can be interpreted in different ways, from rendering service to humanity and promoting the art of healing to restoring good health by identifying, diagnosing, and treating clinical illnesses. Medical professionals must abide by a systems of rules and principles that guide clinical medicine and scientific research, known as medical ethics. Professional ethicists recommend integrating these four principles into decision making within the medical field:

 * 1) Autonomy: Patients have the right to determine their own healthcare.
 * 2) Justice: Distributing the benefits and burdens of care across society.
 * 3) Beneficence: Doing good for the patient.
 * 4) Nonmalfeasance: Making sure you are not harming the patient.

These values aid professionals in considering all values, facts, and logic to determine the optimal course of action.

Background
Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) is a type of machine learning that uses complex programs and algorithms to perform human cognition functions such as perception, reasoning, and learning. As computing power and data quantity has increased in the past decade, A.I. based systems are used more frequently to improve and develop many fields and industries, such as agriculture, government, finance, and healthcare. In healthcare, A.I. based systems improve the accuracy and efficiency of diagnosis and treatment across many specialties. For example, computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) is routinely used in the detection of abnormalities in medical images. Radiologists currently use computer output from CAD systems to serve as a "second opinion" in breast cancer diagnosis. IDx is a A.I. diagnostics company that developed IDx-DR, a CAD system that analyzes images of the retina for signs of diabetic retinopathy. IDx-DR is the first autonomous A.I. based system to be approved by the FDA to provide a diagnostic decision in any field of medicine. A.I. based systems can also use clinical data science to analyze data and assist physicians. Clinical decision support systems (CDSS) utilize the rapidly increasing quantity and quality of data for patients, such as electronic health records, patient surveys, and information exchanges, to develop medical recommendations. In order for high-quality computerized CDSSs to be effective, thoughtful design, implementation, critical evaluation is necessary.

Incorporation of A.I. based systems into clinical settings is slow as many remained concerned about such systems replacing physicians. The American Medical Association (AMA) Journal of Ethics supports A.I. based systems as a complementary tool to aid, not replace, clinicians. They bring attention to several ethical risks that arise within A.I. based systems, such as threats to confidentiality, privacy, informed consent, and patient autonomy. In a case study conducted by the AMA Journal of Ethics, the use of CDSSs in clinical settings was investigated by analyzing Watson, an advanced question-answering computer system developed by IBM. In this study, the benefits, risks, and precautions of using such tools in clinical practices were outlined. CDSSs like Watson have some benefits, such as the ability to detect patterns that human physicians might otherwise overlook. However, these systems may also generate recommendations that are outside the current clinical standards of care, increasing uncertainty in a doctor's final diagnosis. Liability concerns were also addressed as technological innovations increase the opportunity for error in diagnosis. This can result in detrimental outcomes to patient health, posing an additional liability on doctors when making professional recommendations. As the amount and complexity of patient data increases, the need for automated and intelligent systems like Watson increases. However, thorough analysis is necessary to determine the limitations and risks of any A.I. based system prior to utilization in healthcare settings.

Modes of Failure
As A.I. becomes more ubiquitous in healthcare, identification of A.I. failure modes proves necessary to avoid ethical issues in the field. For instance, A.I. can fail if the goals of the model are mis-specified. If a model is programmed to maximize profit instead of to save lives, the model may introduce racial bias or patient preference. Incorrect environmental assumptions, such as an algorithm trained primarily on extreme cases, can lead to models that fail to identify a patient as normal or healthy. Any of these modes of failure or others can lead to ethical challenges. Models may be hard to interpret, making it difficult for doctors to explain their findings to their patients. Models may overuse and overshare information, or use features such as income, race or sex that reflect societal injustice more so than predictive information.

Related Case: Optum Algorithms
Optum, a company in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, developed one of the many commercial algorithms health systems rely on to identify complex health needs of patients of all ages and ethnicities. The algorithms are designed to increase efficiency in health care, reduce costs and, particular to Optum, “increase revenue cycle accuracy.” Optum developed an algorithm to estimate risk scores for patients their urgency for treatment. The algorithm was used by eight of the top us health insurance companies, two major hospitals and the society of actuaries, effectively influencing the care and treatment of millions of patients in the U.S. In October of 2019, an article was published titled “Dissecting racial bias in an algorithm used to manage the health of populations,” exposing that Optum developed a racially biased risk classification algorithm. The study found that at any given risk classification estimate, Black patients were considerably sicker than White patients. Particularly, Black patients with the same number of chronic conditions as White patients were predicted to be at a lower risk at every risk score percentile predicted by the algorithm. Further, for every number of chronic illness, hospitals recorded a lower total medical expenditure for Black patients than for White patients. The researchers found that remedying this disparity would increase the percentage of Black patients receiving additional help from 17.7 to 46.5%. In this study, the authors highlighted that although ancestry was not a variable used in training the predictive algorithm, healthcare costs were. As healthcare costs is considerably colinear to race, it was identified as the source of bias in the algorithm. Optum repeated Obermeyer’s analysis and were able to validate the algorithms bias. Obermeyer offered to rectify the injustice with Optum to find variables predictive of risk score other than health cost. Their combined efforts reduce predictive bias by 84%. In an interview following the publication, Obermeyer underscored that bias in healthcare risk classification is “not a problem with one algorithm, or one company,” but a complication “with how our entire system approaches this problem.” In a parting note, Obermeyer noted that A.I. must be supplemented with decisions in health care, and not relied upon if the field is to avoid these types of ethical issues in the future.

Background
Physician's discretion is a prerequisite for the confidential relationship between doctor and patient, otherwise known as DPR, doctor patient relationship. Professional discretion regulations are put in place to enhance the success of medical treatment and protects the patient‘s privacy and personal rights. Coping with the diversity of legal regulations can be very difficult for physicians. There are numerous ethical regulations put in place by both federal law and by healthcare administrations.

Professional Discretion Regulations and Challenges
The following are some of the aspects that regulate medical professional discretion.

Relatives
Physicians cannot legally make therapeutic decisions for their own relatives. The reasoning is rather self-explanatory, there is a worry that bias will be involved when it comes to live saving measures.

Fellow Doctors
Medical discretion must also be observed among fellow doctors. This is unproblematic if the patient remains informed in the case of joint/further treatment. The following cases are problematic: consulting in additional physicians without the patient's knowledge; joint practices and practice networks.

Media
As far as the media are concerned, there is no case whatsoever that would justify a patient being presented in the media without his or her consent.

Mental Illness
The Doctrine of Professional Discretion outlines medical professional discretion regarding care for patients with mental illness. It is a principle under which a physician can exercise judgment as to whether to show patients who are being treated for mental or emotional conditions their records. Disclosure depends on whether, in the physician's judgment, such patients would be harmed by viewing the records.

HIPAA
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) includes many stipulations regarding patient privacy. With regards to profession discretion, the Privacy Rule and Doctrine of Informed Consent is critical. Informed consent is a process for getting permission before conducting a healthcare intervention on a person, or for disclosing personal information.

Patient Advocacies
Patient advocacies become largely involved with ethically controversial cases, whether it be a family member, friend, or professional advocate. Advocacies place two different tensions on the DPR. First, there may be “conflict between what can reasonably be an expected duty of health care practitioners, and what might be beyond reasonable expectations”. Second, it can be difficult for any trained professional to “distinguishing between what is actual representation of patients’ wishes, and what is an assertion of what the advocate believes to be in the best interests of the patient”

New Patients
Physicians do not have unlimited discretion to refuse to accept a person as a new patient. Physicians cannot refuse to accept a person for ethnic, racial,sexual-orientation or religious reasons.

Life Support and Palliative Care
Advancing technology is allowing us to sustain a life longer, threrefore resulting in a rise in quantity and complexity of ethically controversial cases that doctors face regarding removal of life support devices. In the United States, the withholding and withdrawal of life support can be legally justified primarily by the principles of informed consent and informed refusal.

Conscientious Objection
Conscientious Objection is the doctor’s ability, often enshrined within the law, to opt out of providing or offering certain kinds of intervention on grounds of conscience. They must ensure that patients know about the decision and that they are able to receive care that they are entitled to from another professional in a timely manner. If the delivery of medical services to patients on conscience grounds is compromised, the responsible physician are punished, likely by removal of their license to practice.

Ethics Comittee Consultation
Most healthcare systems have a resource that should be consulted in any ethically ambiguous situations. Physicians can call for help from a member of the ethics committee, in order to review the correct legal proceedures. An ethics committee is a consultation service for any patient, family member, or employee who believes there is an ethically challenging issue that is not properly being addressed and would like further help in solving. It is a multidisciplinary team composed of physicians, nurses, social workers, administrators, chaplains and other employees.


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Professionalism/San Bruno Pipeline Explosion

The Explosion
In the early evening of September 6, 2010, a natural gas transmission line suddenly exploded near a residential neighborhood within San Bruno, California. The blast was said to be heard throughout the whole city of San Bruno and the nearby residents recall huge walls of flames shortly after the initial blast. With the confusion caused by the, it took nearly one hour for first responders and utility crews to determine that it was a natural gas leak and several hours to completely control the blaze. By the time the incident was under control, the initial blast and the fire had taken the lives of eight people and injured 58 more. In addition to the casualties, this incident has completely destroyed 37 homes. The company in charge of the pipeline was Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E). They were the cognizant body of the development and construction of the natural gas transmission line, which spans across two thirds of northern California. At the time they were one of the largest utility and electricity providers in the state. The estimated cost of the explosion is approximately $2.6 billion from the time of the explosion to present day (May 4, 2020).

Critical Events
There were many critical events which play a significant role in the pipeline explosion. The first critical event can be traced back to a loss of power at a nearby PG&E pump station. The job of the pump station was to monitor and control the pressure and flow within the system, Due to the loss of power at the pump station, many of the remote-controlled valves were left in an open position. This allowed the continuous flow of natural gas to be present in the system and as a result the pressure in the pipeline began to rise. While this was all happening, lying in wait under a residential neighborhood was a 30-inch natural gas pipe section which had a horizontal welded seam that ran down the entire length of the pipe. Once the pressure reached its highest point at 400 pounds per a square inch, the pipeline section exploded at the welded seam. All of these events together created the perfect conditions for this incident to take place.

National Transportation Safety Board Investigation
After the pipeline incident, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) led an investigation to determine the cause of the explosion. The findings from the NTSB classified the San Bruno pipeline explosion as an organizational accident. This means that most of the causes that were attributed to the pipeline failings were made by PG&E during the development of the natural gas pipeline and how they responded to the explosion. The NTSB determined that PG&E had problems with their management program, risk assessment procedures, and recurring malpractice during the development and construction of the pipeline. Therefore, PG&E’s conscious decisions at vital steps of the pipeline increased the chances of a major incident to occur.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company
Pacific Gas and Electric Company was the biggest player in this case as they owned the pipe that exploded. One cause of the explosion was over pressurization, however an important detail is that the pressure fell between PG&E’s recommended operating pressure and the maximum pressure rating from the pipe’s manufacturer. This reveals that the welds used in the pipe’s construction were inadequate. More importantly, this case highlights PG&E’s history of poor record keeping and risk management practices. After trial, they were found to have inaccurate or incomplete records, they willfully failed to identify threats to its pipelines, and when those threats were identified, they weren’t prioritized as high risks. In the case of Line 132, which was the pipe that exploded, it was labeled as a “seamless pipe” and the methods that were used to assign risks would not have put the mislabeled pipe as high priority. This led to many violations of the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act of 1968, which essentially gave the Department of Transportation the authority to establish safety guidelines for pipelines, including strict record keeping and risk assessment. There were other issues within PG&E that lead to the Line 132’s explosion. Their work culture emphasized worker safety over system safety, which CPUC reported in their discussions with top management. Their culture also reflects regulatory compliance, meaning they simply take action to satisfy safety requirements rather than making it a top priority or an industry example for pipeline safety.

California Public Utilities Commission
California Public Utilities Commission was responsible for enforcing regulations on PG&E. They claim one shortcoming of their commitment is that they are engaged on regulating many other fields with large scope. Their internal leaders had disagreement in which fields to prioritize. This led to heavy budget constraints on pipeline management, which prevented them from hiring consultants who were more knowledgeable in pipeline testing. Another issue with the breadth of focus was a lack of time spent on pipeline inspections. California law requires that CPUC inspect mobile home parks and gas distribution systems, which are abundant. This left 17% of CPUC’s inspection days on transmission pipes. This provided a challenge for CPUC to regulate pipelines, and PG&E’s history of false/inaccurate record keeping added on. Despite this, CPUC fined PG&E $1.6 billion.

National Transportation Safety Board
The National Transportation Safety Board led the inspection of the pipeline aftermath. They work with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to establish safety standards for pipeline construction. PG&E and CPUC are required to comply with these guidelines. NTSB’s investigation revealed that PG&E labeled Line 132 as a 30-inch diameter seamless pipe with an unknown manufacturer in 1956. The manufacturer was later added in 1998, acquired from a pipeline survey sheet from their accounting records instead of engineering records. NTSB later discovered that the pipe was not seamless in other documentation PG&E produced for the project, and that seamless pipes were still not available in diameters larger than 26-inches.

Court Ruling
PG&E was charged with a total of 6 criminal charges. Five of which were violations of the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act, and the last charge was from PG&E attempting to provide false data to influence the NTSB’s investigation. Specifically, PG&E provided a policy to the NTSB indicating how they addressed manufacturing threats, which revealed that they did not prioritize older pipelines. They later attempted to contact the NTSB to withdraw the document, claiming it was produced in error. PG&E was charged $3 million, required that their employees perform 10,000 hours of community service, and that they have a direct monitor to ensure that pipelines comply with regulation, records are kept properly, and better risk management protocols are in place.

Cause of the explosion and behind the scene
After the initial investigation of the pipeline explosion, the NTSB concluded that the San Bruno pipeline explosion was ‘the story of flawed pipe, flawed inspection and flawed emergency response.’ NTSB investigators found that PG&E installed the compromised pipeline with welded pipes back in the 1950s and reported it as seamless pipes to inspectors. Furthermore, when the pipeline was relocated back in 1956, the seams on the pipe were welded only on the outside. This was another problematic finding because the seams on the pipe had to be welded both inside and outside of the pipe indicating PG&E’s pipe was a defect and violation of safety standards by then. After the installation, the pipeline did not go through the proper safety testing before it went into operation. It was found that PG&E did not perform pressure testing and hydrostatic testing that would have allowed them to check if the pipe would rupture in pressure changing situations. After the installation, the pipeline also did not go through the proper safety testing before it went into operation. It was found that PG&E did not perform any system testing once the pipeline was installed in the ground and proceeded to perform normal operating procedures. It is most likely that PG&E knew that their pipes had problems when they were installed, however they intentionally concealed the fact and falsified the data to avoid any complications that might have happened around it. According to experts, the choice for using welded pipes instead of seamless pipes and not to have testing were made most likely because of extra cost that would have been needed to pass inspection. When NTSB investigators requested the pipeline maintenance data from PG&E, the company did not immediately have record of the pipeline maintenance and had to make its 1,500 employees to search through files for five days to sort out the data indicating that it did not have proper maintenance of pipe for considerable amount of time. During the investigation for the San Bruno pipeline explosion, the NTSB investigators have found past email communication records between higher executives in PG&E and CPUC before and after the San Bruno explosion. The people associated in these email findings were Brian Cherry, PG&E’s former vice president of regulatory affairs, Thomas Bottorff, PG&E’s former senior vice president of regulatory affairs, Chris Johns, former president of PG&E, Michael Peevy, former president of the CPUC, Paul Clanon, former executive director of the CPUC, and few others. They communicated often on a regular basis about things related to work and personal affairs, including invitations to personal residences, and also asked about how to deal with the pipe explosion after the incident happened. These findings indicated that there were close ties between higher executives in PG&E and the CPUC and from these emails. relationship, it was suspected that the CPUC allowed PG&E to bypass safety standards on pipeline safety. The relationship can only be alleged due to the fact it was never acknowledge by the people who are associated. It was found that PG&E has diverted more than $100 million that was meant to be used for gas safety and operations and spent it to provide profit for stockholders and give bonuses to executives for over 15 years. Also, the company spent $56 million annually on an incentive plan for executives and non-employee directors and saved 6% of the money designated for pipeline safety and maintenance by reducing pipeline-replacement projects and maintenance, laying off workers, and saving other pipeline safety costs. Due to all this savings it has made with pipeline inspection, PG&E reported that their transmission pipeline operations have been a profitable business since 1998. Several documents indicated a lack of safety culture in PG&E and company’s focus on financial performance. During the trial, PG&E tried to avoid as much fines and penalty as possible by seeking to assign or share the blames for the explosion. The company tried to convince that it should not be held liable for the explosion because something else might have caused it and even tried to blame blast victims by saying they “may have been legally responsible under a doctrine of comparative negligence or contributory negligence."

Conclusion
State Sen. Jerry Hill, who represents San Bruno, said, “This was not an accident…it was based on circumstances where you have a utility that diverted hundreds of millions of dollars from safety, from maintenance, from testing and from service.’ Evidence that has gathered and past actions surfaced along the NTSB’s investigation indicate that PG&E’s main focus was monetary gain and company profit over safety of people despite the fact they were responsible for running huge pipelines that were capable of causing catastrophe with mismanagement. At the same time, the CPUC failed to do what it was supposed to do due to inappropriate ties with the company.


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Emerging Technologies in Transportation Casebook/Blockchain

= Blockchain in Transportation = This case reviews the use of Blockchain in the Transportation Field. It is the collaborative work of Alexander Merker, Farida Ibrahim, and Jephthah Nti, graduate students enrolled in George Mason University's Transportation Policy, Operations, and Logistics Program at the time of writing. The following casebook examines the uses and policy challenges associated with blockchain technology in the transportation field. It was produced as an assignment for George Mason University's Emerging Tech, Transportation & Public Policy graduate course, taught by Dr. Jonathan Gifford.

Case Summary
Carrying large volumes of goods and people, the transportation and logistics industry require strong processes of accountability and security to ensure long-term success. Blockchain, an emergent computer technology, offers potential solutions for these age-old problems. Rising to prominence as the framework for BitCoin, one of the first digital currencies, Blockchain’s fundamental features of strong accountability and security have led to a plethora of hypothetical uses, with many already brought into reality. For transportation, likely one of humanity's oldest industries, the introduction of this new technology has been slow but steady. Overall, the technology appears poised to become a bedrock of operations for nearly all businesses in this field.

Blockchain
Blockchain, also known as distributed ledger, is a computer system that utilizes a peer-to-peer network of computers to facilitate a log of transactions within the network. Each transaction, known as a block, has its own signature known as a hash. Each new transaction is tied to the last and creates a lineage which is known as a blockchain. The creation and history of each blockchain is shared in a digital ledger among many different computers in a network known as nodes. Each node must be in agreement on the authenticity of each hash. Because the hash has been distributed amongst nodes that are physically separated and ideally controlled by differing parties in a network, forging a hash or otherwise altering it requires alteration on all nodes. This system makes it difficult, though not impossible, to alter. This system allows for an extensive log of information, which can be used for transactions or data storage applications and is easy to audit for validity. Bitcoin is an example of a blockchain technology, as it utilizes the technology to record all transactions amongst its digital currency.

Annotated List of Actors
Road Transportation
 * General Motors: Developing blockchain network for autonomous vehicle data sharing across the passenger vehicle industry

Aviation
 * Honeywell Aerospace: One of the first aerospace manufacturers to incorporate blockchain into its product line and sales

Maritime
 * TradeLens: The first significant shipping consortium established specifically with the utilization of Blockchain in mind. Includes the establishing partners:
 * IBM
 * Maersk
 * Global Shipping Business Network (GSBN): A competing consortium to TradeLens. Includes the establishing partners:
 * CargoSmart
 * Oracle

Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA) This is an organization which comprises members from almost all of the transportation industry. It is a member-driven organization where members share a common mission of ensuring that the various industry stakeholders adopt and develop the technology to help meet its demands as time evolves.

Timeline of Events
1991: Stuart Haber and Scott Stornetta introduce the concept of time stamping digital documents to verify authenticity.

2000: The theory of cryptographic secured chains and ideas on how to implement it is published by Stefan Konst

2002: David Mazières and Dennis Shasha took the concept further, studying how blocks can store data

2005: Nick Szabo, a computer scientist, proposed a new block chain based currency called ‘bit gold.

2008: Satoshi Nakamoto (A Pseudonym) published Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, an outline for what would become BitCoin

2009: BitCoin, one of the first Blockchain-based digital currencies, is launched

2009: Nakamoto mines first successful block transaction

2014: Blockchain’s potential in supporting other kinds of operations not only that of cryptocurrency is realized. This leads to the birth of Blockchain 2.0 and attracts a lot of investment by investors. ,

2017: Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA) is founded which is currently the largest commercial blockchain alliance in the world that generates an annual revenue of over $1 trillion

2018: Competing Blockchain-enabled shipping networks TradeLens and the Global Shipping Business Network are launched

2018: Honeywell Aerospace launches its GoDirect portal, which utilizes Blockchain in sales of its aviation products to customers

Positive Attributes
The primary benefits and uses of blockchain technology can be broken down into three categories:

 * Security: Blockchain’s interwoven structure provides strong anti-tampering defenses, so long as the distributed network it is built upon ensures no single actor or group of actors own more than half of all nodes.
 * Auditing: The use of lineage-based chains and distributed reporting of interactions allows for quick and accurate audits of all transactions occurring in the network from any node. This also provides any actor within a network the ability to audit other members of the network.
 * Easy Access To Data: The process of logging all transactions allows for each node to contain all data on the network, providing for immediate access to a log of all transactions. The distribution of this information across many nodes also provides redundancy in the case of data loss at a node.

These benefits provide a strong use case in transportation, which requires both security and accountability in the high volume, high value transactions on which business and organizations in the field are built.

Negative Attributes
Like many new technologies, the early stages of development and adoption are susceptible to policy concerns that may hold back the mainstream adoption. Blockchain technologies are no different and pose an even greater policy debate due to its ability to create new ways to facilitate the transfer of assets and verify transactions which can render traditional ways of verifying transactions obsolete. Subsequently, a few key issues related to blockchain are listed below:

Privacy/security concerns
One of the fundamental issues of blockchain is how to use the technology without violating privacy. Although there is potential for blockchain to facilitate increased trust and security, there is also a potential for its features to make secured data open to cyber-attacks. Block chain operates on an add only data process where data recorded is permanently stored and cannot be removed or deleted. Thus, its immutability remains one of its greatest advantages and simultaneously the most vulnerable feature. Although a difficult task, if hackers manage to obtain a majority of computing power greater than 50% (51 % percent attack) in the node they can gain access to data stored on the distributed ledger system. The data on the blockchain does not contain personal identifiable information; it is still a risk that operating data such as transaction details can be illegally obtained.

Legislative Action
With the emergence of block chain technology the issue of its regulation has become increasingly relevant. Governments and policy makers require a deep understanding of blockchain technology in order to develop policy and regulatory frameworks. However, as a novel technology some experts and policy makers are uncertain about the capabilities of this technology. As a result, it is often debated and contested on which legal and regulatory frameworks should be implemented and/or amended to support the technology. Furthermore, there is a certain obscurity associated with components of the technology that makes reaching a consensus difficult. For example, do we treat smart contracts as traditional agreements that are legally binding?. Smart contracts are a digitized form of traditional agreements that are coded, and effectively computer programs, which have gradually gained leverage in society as they first became legal in the UK.

The implementation of block chain technology is a gradual process that involves legal considerations that will define what is plausible and/ or practical. For example, Arizona introduced House Bill 2417 in 2017, this bill validated smart contracts and made it legally a permissible and binding contract. As of 2015, 5 states such as Tennessee, Nevada, Delaware, Ohio and Wyoming have followed suit enacting block chain legislation.

Additionally, as this technology transcends borders it is necessary to develop standards on the technological level to ensure interoperability and cross-border exchange (allen et al). This would require a combined effort from public to private partnerships and national and international authorities to make the new and updated standards work.

Blockchain’s Use in Transportation
Transportation and logistics networks, whether they be land, air, or sea-based, can all benefit in one way or another from the enhanced security and accountability provided by blockchain technology. The data collection aspect of Blockchain is particularly valuable in these industries, as people and goods are transported in large volumes and blockchain provides transportation organizations with a streamlined and secure method of tracking and accounting their shipments.

Road Transportation
Blockchain technologies can offer significant advantages in the movement of goods and people by road. The commercial movement of goods is information intensive and requires extensive communication between multiple participants. Blockchain technology can be beneficial through this process by ensuring that these parties are interconnected and that the flow of the information across shippers, carriers, customs agents and banks are managed more efficiently as all distributed information will be synced across all actors within the network. The decentralized location of all supply chain data will improve transparency and eliminate redundancy. For one, it can be useful in verifying the authenticity of documents that often change hands multiple times at different points of entry and throughout the supply chain process. For example, all goods are usually accompanied by a bill of lading which documents the number and condition of goods. As these documents change hands, there is a risk that documents may be tampered with. However, adding documents as they are received to a blockchain may reduce the possibility of double spending and allow for the multiple parties listed above to engage in secure, trusted transactions with one another without an intermediary. The improvement of the flow and management of information will increase the efficiency of transportation by facilitating increased transparency and trust across the road transportation network. Additionally, by removing the third-party verification there will also be cost savings in administrative costs as transaction fees are bypassed.

Blockchain technology can be useful in aiding the communication between autonomous vehicles. Self-driving vehicles required an immense amount of data as inputs into their machine learning architecture, something which a lone automaker may have immense trouble acquiring. To resolve this issue, General Motors and automakers are turning to blockchain networks to crowdsource data while maintaining privacy. Within the context of their use as rideshare fleets, blockchain networks could theoretically allow for secure transactions with charging stations owned by separate organizations without human intervention. Additionally, access to the data produced in a blockchain network could be used for third parties outside of a transportation network, such as insurance providers.

Aviation Maintenance
There are several uses for blockchain in the field of aircraft maintenance. In this sector, costs are high, and safety is paramount. For these reasons, counterfeit replacement parts are a constant concern for aircraft operators. Parts not produced under the strict standards established for approved parts manufacturers may be prone to failure, with the potential for loss of property and life. In 2016, the NTSB concluded that such incidents of counterfeit part failure resulted in more than 20 crashes and seven fatalities between 2010 and 2016. To curb or eliminate the use of counterfeit parts, manufacturers may turn to blockchain technology. Because it provides a system for the verification of a parts authenticity, the risk of accidental use of counterfeit parts in aircraft is reduced the overall incentive for selling such articles as a result. Honeywell, an aerospace manufacturer, has already begun utilizing Blockchain in its services, launching an online web portal in tandem with its blockchain enabled digital documentation process.

Blockchain also provides a method of accurately recording and auditing the maintenance cycles of aircraft. Using Blockchain, aircraft maintainers and operators have the capability to consistently and effectively log the life cycle of each aircraft and its components, theoretically down to the individual bolt. Such a capability provides a wealth of benefits, which include increasing the efficiency of maintenance, certifying appropriate maintenance actions, and anticipating future maintenance needs. These enhanced processes may lead to reduced costs for operators, thereby lowering the cost of operations land passing it on to the consumers of their passenger or cargo services.

Airline Services
Blockchain’s data collection properties provide many accounting benefits for businesses. In the airline industry, these can range from tracking loyalty program flyers and their benefits, to improving the efficiency of aircraft operations. These benefits can create both costs savings and enhance revenue generation. In addition to business benefits, blockchain technology can also provide enhanced security and reduce risk for airline and aircraft operators by building enhanced digital security measures to ensure data privacy and integrity.

Rail
Blockchain has been adopted by various industries including the railway industry. The reason for this is because of its characteristics of transparency, data security and decentralization. These characteristics when summed up support the railway industry in offering efficient and effective services of transporting both goods and passengers from one place to the other.

Blockchain that is centered on digitization enables more efficiency and effectiveness by reducing cost of processes and operations in the industry. For example the digitized issuance of tickets to passengers possesses the capability of eliminating paper tickets and surplus voucher cards. The technology used also affords passengers various ways to pay for and access their tickets. Still on its effectiveness and efficiency is how this technology has the potential of tracking freight shipments and its paperwork that are handled by freight service providers. , Many businesses, states and countries are adopting this technology in order to sustain, develop and expand their networks as well as increase their mode of conducting business. In the United States for instance, some major railroad companies have joined the blockchain technology alliance. BNSF Railway Company a first Class I railway company in Northern America freight transportation companies which operates about 32,500 miles of track in 28 states was the first railway company to join the Alliance. Other companies like CSX have also joined Maersk’s blockchain-backed freight tracking platforms called TradeLens in order to track end-to-end shipments effectively.

Even Russia, despite its lack of trust in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, has accepted the technology to some extent as it will help in tracking and gathering data on passengers.

Maritime
Much like the benefits seen in other transportation sectors, blockchain can provide significant cost savings through increased efficiency and security in the maritime sector. At the time of writing, the maritime industry requires an extensive amount of paperwork and bureaucracy to operate in its multinational and highly regulated environment. Blockchain technology can replace these extensive paperwork approval processes with a much more efficient and secure system. Additionally, it can provide proof of custody for goods and easily resolve disputes with clear and secure documentation. These improvements could provide significant cost savings to shipping organizations, which would have significant implications for the overall cost of the multinational trade.

IBM and Maersk have already partnered to build a Blockchain platform known as TradeLens. Established and launched in 2018, the TradeLens consortium is composed of five of the largest shipping companies. Competing against TradeLens is the joint CargoSmart-Oracle system known as the Global Shipping Business Network (GSBN) that was launched the same year. Membership in these networks is not exclusive however, and at least two European shipping companies have membership with both.

Outlook
Blockchain technology promises solutions to the business and technology challenges faced by the transportation industry. While the progress of adoption remains slow, the emergence of blockchain networks in international shipping appears to be a significant milestone for blockchain in transportation. With adoption by the world’s largest shipping organizations, the use case for this technology can be proven and a precedent set. In parallel, the potential for blockchain in autonomous vehicle development may dramatically reduce the length of time required for its development, as competitors utilize blockchain’s peer-to-peer sharing aspect to crowdsource data used in machine learning for their systems. Overall, this emergent technology appears poised to revolutionize business practices in one of the world’s oldest and largest industries.

Discussion Questions

 * 1) What other uses might blockchain’s principle design features have in transportation?
 * 2) How much of blockchain’s use cases could be done without blockchain technology?
 * 3) What are the benefits and drawbacks?
 * 4) What unique problems exist in transportation that might inhibit the adoption of blockchain technology?

Additional Readings
International Air Transport Association: Blockchain In Aviation Exploring The Fundamentals, Use Cases, And Industry Initiatives

Texas A&M: Exploring Blockchain – Technology behind Bitcoin and Implications for Transforming Transportation

Satoshi Nakamoto: Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System


text:
User talk:TMPorale

Welcome, TMPorale!

If you have any questions, you can ask in the assistance reading room or possibly contact me personally. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 10:16, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

title: User talk:TMPorale


text:
Oberon/ETH Oberon/irqs

Back to: Native Oberon Hardware Compatibility List   IRQs support Summary Multiple Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) devices cannot share an ISA IRQ (except the serial ports); however, multiple PCI devices can share a PCI IRQ. On computers that use a PCI bus, the 16 standard IRQs can be programmed to either PCI or ISA mode. An IRQ cannot be programmed for both modes at once. IRQ assignment conflicts are analyzed and ways to solve then are discussed. How IRQs are assigned to ISA devices in Oberon

(F) Fixed, hard-coded

(D) Dynamically evaluated by the system itself

ATADisks.Mod - confirmed in KernelLog

Adaptec7.Mod - confirmed in KernelLog

Net3Com509.Mod - confirmed in KernelLog

NetNe2000.Mod - not

UsbUhci.Mod - confirmed in KernelLog

Sound.Mod - not

(S) For system use only

IRQs communicated to the system via Oberon.Text:

The IRQ of a sound card must be specified in the Sound.Audio section. Preset to 7.

The IRQ of a Atapi CD-ROM must be specified in the Sound.CDAtapi section. Preset to 15.

The IRQ of a Mitsumi CD-ROM must be specified in the Sound.CDMitsumi section Preset to 10.

The IRQ assigned to PCI and AGP devices can be determined by executing the PCI analyzer command PCITools.Scan.

For a detailed discussion of the IRQs cfr. IRQ Details By Number. How to avoid conflicting ISA IRQs Here are some general ideas on how to allocate the limited number of IRQS.

 * Make an inventory of the IRQs required by the components. Consider the ISA legacy devices first, since they might have jumpers to set and it takes opening the case.
 * If you are using a PnP motherboard, go into the System Setup and check if "PnP OS installed" is set. If it is, reset it.
 * If the motherboard offers it, reserve the IRQs for the ISA legacy devices.
 * In the System Setup, disable the devices which will not be used, such as IRA, USB, serial or parallel port, etc. The parallel port may easily be dispensed with; use a network printer by preference.
 * If the motherboard offers it, set the IRQ of the PCI slots manually or let the BIOS assign automatically.
 * Some old PCI cards just don't want to function in new mainboards, especially PCI 2.0 cards in PCI 2.2 mainboards.

For developers: How to control an IRQ by program An interrupt handler is installed with the Kernel.InstallIP procedure and the interrupt is enabled by the Kernel. The procedure "p" must be defined as a normal "PROCEDURE p;". On entry to p, interrupts are disabled and may be enabled with SYSTEM.STI. At exit from p, the state of interrupts are restored. The acknowledgement of a hardware interrupt is done by the Kernel. No end-of-interrupt has to be signalled explicitly in procedure p. IRQs are mapped starting at interrupt Kernel.IRQ.

At entry to procedure p the stack is as follows:

56   EFLAGS'' 52   CS'' 48   EIP''    (IRETD from glue code) 44   errorcode 40   intnum 36   EAX 32   ECX 28   EDX 24   EBX 20   ESP'    (overwritten) 16   EBP 12   ESI 08   EDI 04   EIP'    (RET from p)      00    EBP'    <-- EBP xx   locals    <-- ESP

[Top]

''22 Jul 2002 - Copyright © 2002 ETH Zürich. All rights reserved.''

E-Mail: oberon at lists.inf.ethz.ch

Homepage http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch

title: Oberon/ETH Oberon/irqs


text:
Professionalism/Startup Deception

In recent years, many startup companies have sprouted up and made impressions on the world. Startups such as Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb bring convenience to daily life, while disrupting long-entrenched industries. They are lauded for innovation, but many are unaware of the problematic side of startups.

Introduction
Startups are known for their culture of cutting edge technology and innovation. The latter half of the 2010s has been nicknamed “the age of unicorns,” where the term “unicorn” refers to a privately held company valued at $1 billion or more. It is common for startups to raise large amounts of money from venture investors, and in 2018 a new unicorn was named every four days on average. With this culture of aggressive growth comes the “fake it til you make it” mentality. Historically, startups have been ambitious with their visions and marketing in order to get funding from venture investors.

However, startups can fail hard when the promises they make to investors don’t come to fruition. As a startup grows, investors want tangible results and may withdraw their support (and ask for their money back) if they don’t see any. Startups are also subject to regulations and ethical concerns when their line of business affects people’s lives. Theranos, a biotech startup, was exposed when its employees contacted journalists over concerns about faulty blood tests. Theranos had made deals with Safeway and Walgreens to offer its tests in stores, and patients would have been making medical decisions based off of these tests.

The Need For Funding
Venture capital plays a large role in startups trying to commercialize their product. More than 80% of venture money given to a startup goes into the infrastructure needed for the startup to grow its business, such as manufacturing and marketing. This funding is temporary and intended to sustain the startup until it is stable and credible enough to be sold to a corporation or launch an initial public offering. Venture capital fund investors typically want a return of 25% to 35% over the lifetime of the investment. As a result, venture capitalists prefer investments that are low risk. They are known to heavily evaluate potential before making investments.

Funding is essential to a startup’s success. To maintain investor confidence, an entrepreneur has to keep an air of optimism and aggressively push the company vision. In order to keep up with the high expectations they set, startups may misrepresent their achievements. Founders can feel pressure to make sure their ventures succeed as well. Some entrepreneurs drop out of college or put their other careers on hold to focus on their business idea. If a competitor appears with a similar idea, that can also add pressure to succeed. After participating in a fraudulent act, founders may rationalize that other successful startup founders have done the same or that legal consequences won’t be severe.

Founders of startups may also feel personal guilt over losing investors money in cases of failure. Jeff Wald claims that many investors in his failed startup were friends and stated, “I reached into my own pocket and paid them back. I was so ashamed of it.”

Startups are also vulnerable to fraud. Deceptive sales pitches resulting from the presumption that startups are more likely to partake in shady activity mean negotiators are more likely to present faulty claims during negotiations. One study performed by Jörg R. Rottenburger and Lutz Kaufmann found that startups have a much higher chance of being deceived by experienced negotiators during sales.

The CEO Worship Problem
The startup community is also prone to CEO worship. Following the trend started by Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, corporate leaders are taking on the role of prophetic figures who profess to be disrupting industries and changing the world. Elon Musk is a prominent example: the founder of Tesla and SpaceX proposed pneumatic tube systems as a new public transportation method, and at least three multi-million dollar startups have been formed to implement the idea. Charismatic leaders can inspire employees to work harder, but issues arise when they value their personal brand over the company’s integrity.

In addition, many startup CEOs tend to have psychopathic traits. A psychopath is an individual who has Antisocial Personality Disorder, characterized by manipulative behavior, difficulties with empathy, and a tendency to lie often. They also tend to have dominant and bold personalities. Corporate environments are already known for attracting psychopaths, as 4-8% of high-level business executives are psychopathic compared to 1% in the general population. Entrepreneurship requires relationship sacrifices, convincing others to join or invest, and a high level of confidence, things that psychopaths excel at. Psychopaths tend to surround themselves with people who will follow them without question, meaning psychopathic startup founders will fill their companies with subordinates who will enable their behavior.

Industry Pressure
As more unicorn companies are beginning to emerge, more and more people feel that becoming a unicorn company isn’t enough to “make it” anymore. A common notion is that your company must have “ultra-success” to be viewed in a positive light. According to Jeff Wald, the former CEO of WorkMarket, upon selling his startup for an undisclosed amount, other members of the startup community expressed condolences that the company “didn’t work out.” Startups also feel immense pressure to be successful as quickly as possible. The sooner you begin to make a lot of money, the sooner investors want to invest prompting more of the “fake it till you make it” mentality. Through unchecked confidence, some CEOs can convince investors to invest in their company, with unkeepable promises.

Entrepreneurship Culture
Another reason for the prevalence of startup deception is that entrepreneurship inherently lends itself to questionable behavior. By definition, entrepreneurship means marketing products or services that don’t exist yet. Even altruistic startup founders have to persuade investors and customers to believe in a vision, and if the vision fails the investors have lost their money. As a result, misdirection among startups is extremely common. Jakub Kostecki is the founder of StartupFactCheck, a consultancy that helps investors evaluate startups for legitimacy. Kostecki has investigated 150 early-stage startups, three fourths of which were found to have given investors misleading or incomplete information, such as claiming that users who registered for a free trial were customers. Interestingly, Dave McClure, founding partner of the venture fund and accelerator 500 Startups, states that his firm will sometimes invest in a startup even if some misrepresentation is discovered. McClure even claims that there may be a correlation between “interesting behavior” and successful entrepreneurship.

The perception of startup deception is aided by the culture in Silicon Valley, a hotbed of high tech. It is home to tech giants such as Google and Facebook, and many startups are located in the Bay Area. Due to the Valley’s tech-heavy culture, engineers and inventors are praised above managers. Many startup founders are also young and inexperienced, while simultaneously exposed to venture capitalists who pressure them to break traditions and think innovatively. As a result, bad leadership is common.

Examples
Hampton Creek was a vegan food manufacturer founded in 2011. They bring vegan food options for egg based products such as mayonnaise to market. The company enjoyed strong early success as a competitor to traditional egg based products. In 2016, it was found that employees and contractors of the company pretended to be customers by purchasing their products, thus inflating their consumer demand. Josh Tetrick, the founder of Hampton Creek, justified this as product testing. A year later, Target pulled all of Hampton Creek’s products from its shelves, citing allegations that pathogens had been found at one of their manufacturing plants and that the products were mislabeled as non-GMO. Later investigations have questioned the validity of these claims. They recently renamed to JUST, still operating and successful.

Theranos was a health technology company aimed at manufacturing blood test kits that required very little blood. See Professionalism/Tyler Shultz, Elizabeth Holmes, and Theranos

Bouxtie was a startup aimed to sell online gift cards for various companies. The CEO, Renato Libric, reportedly made false claims to investors to gain investment money through forging signatures from several different entities such as bank statements and loan approvals from his board of directors. The company never gained traction and the CEO is facing up to 20 years in jail with a $250,000 fine.

Outcome Health was a healthcare information startup that installed flat screen televisions in doctors’ offices at no cost to the doctors, then offered pharmaceutical companies airtime for advertisements, with the implication that they would be viewed by patients. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed claims that Outcome would sometimes charge pharmaceutical companies for more screens than they’d actually installed at the doctor’s office. Some employees of Outcome claimed that it would sometimes charge for doctor’s offices it hadn’t installed screens in yet, but hoped to. In addition, the SEC and DOJ claim that the founders manipulated the results of surveys that measured how doctors and their patients responded to the ads, making it appear that more patients participated. In 2017, the Wall Street Journal wrote a story about Shah and Agarwal which led them to resign. Shah and Agarwal face a combined 26 counts of fraud, with the most serious charges carrying up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million dollar fine if convicted.

Solutions
The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) helps to evaluate startups for fraud. Members of the ACFE are vetted with background checks and must have fraud-related work experience such as in accounting, auditing, criminology, sociology, fraud investigation, loss prevention, or law. Certified members of the ACFE are often hired as auditors, accountants, consultants, or analysts by venture capitalists and private equity firms to keep track of startups they’ve invested in. To preemptively combat fraud, a certified fraud examiner (CFE) could review companies’ financials, conduct background checks on founders, or participate in meetings with executive teams. In addition, if the investing group publicizes that they’re working with a CFE, it could dissuade startups from committing fraud in the future. There are many startups focused on fraud prevention through fields like machine learning, auditing, and cybersecurity. AngelList, a platform for startups to raise money online, recruit employees, and apply for funding, lists 202 companies solely focused on helping other companies detect fraud.

In 2016, the SEC announced that they were closely watching the conduct of private companies as well as emerging platforms that trade in private company securities, and will bring enforcement cases as needed to protect investors. Named the “Silicon Valley Initiative”, SEC chair Mary Jo White emphasized that companies are not immune from the scrutiny of the SEC despite reaching certain sizes and maturities. In addition, Whiet noted that the SEC was also focused on the secondary market for trading pre-IPO, with the mission to protect investors.

Conclusions
Fraudulent startups present a great risk to investors. A highly successful tech industry entices many companies to try to get a foothold in the industry, resulting in many startups making promises they can’t keep. Absurd confidence and a highly charismatic CEO can secure a company funding, but the company’s success ultimately depends on the quality of its product. Companies will continue to falsify claims so long as they aren’t harshly punished or aren’t caught.

title: Professionalism/Startup Deception


text:
User talk:BeeBringer

Welcome
Welcome to Wikibooks, BeeBringer!

 First steps tutorial Wikibooks is for collaborative development of free textbooks.

You do not need technical skills to contribute. You can easily change most books. Please introduce yourself, and let us know what interests you.

If you already contribute at other Wikimedia projects, our Wikimedia Orientation should quickly get you started. (Would you like to provide feedback on this message?)

  Getting help   Made a mistake?   Goodies, tips and tricks
 * Read the Using Wikibooks book for a friendly introduction to the project, or our help pages for more information.
 * You can get friendly help from the community in the user assistance room or our IRC channel.
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 * You can restore a previously saved version.
 * Pages should follow the  naming convention.
 * Need to rename a page? Use the move tab (is available once your account is 4 days old - until then, ask for help).
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--Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 16:52, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

title: User talk:BeeBringer


text:
User talk:Amanda Melane

Yes🙂

Don't know what to do
I am just worried about my school work Amanda Melane (discuss • contribs) 19:03, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

title: User talk:Amanda Melane


text:
Cookbook talk:Canh Chua (Vietnamese Hot and Sour Soup)

I have been editing Wikipedia since 2007, but never visited wiki books. Looking around, and being a cook, I browsed to this article, canh chua being one of my favorites. I was surprised to find how different this recipe is from my own. What is the general guidelines for alternative recipes for the same dish?--WriterArtistDC (discuss • contribs) 20:50, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
 * As you can see into Category:Recipes (ex : with Barbecue Sauce), you can create another page with a precise style. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 06:53, 5 May 2020 (UTC)


text:
User:Fadedglint

Nak Muay for life

title: User:Fadedglint


text:
User talk:175.223.10.31

May 2020

 * If this is a shared IP address, and you did not make the edits, consider creating an account for yourself so you can avoid further irrelevant notices.

title: User talk:175.223.10.31


text:
MediaWiki User Guide/Graphs

MediaWiki has graph extension that allows to enter data into the wiki markup and have a graph rendered automatically as a raster image. Many wikis have Graph:Chart template that encapsulates the raw markup for the graphs.

A mimimal example of a line chart:

A bar chart with dimensions, axis titles, a grid that shows values above the bars and setting of a bar color:

A line chart with x-axis values of the type date and x-axis labels at an angle:

A line chart with two data series with line colors set and a legend:

A semilog line chart, that is, one with logarithmic scale of the y-axis:

A pie chart with colors, values shown in the chart and a legend showing the x values:

Links

 * Extension:Graph/Demo, mediawiki.org
 * Extension:Graph, mediawiki.org
 * , wikipedia.org
 * Module:Graph, mediawiki.org - documents arguments of graphing, such as type

title: MediaWiki User Guide/Graphs


text:
Talk:End-user Computer Security/Main content/Simple security measures

Is sleep mode more secure than shutdown or hibernate mode?
Trammell Hudson briefly deals with whether computers should be completely shutdown, or suspended, in relation to security (see https://trmm.net/Heads_FAQ#suspend_vs_shutdown.3F). This comparison can be extended to whether computers should be powered-on, or powered-off, in relation to security. It may well be better for a computer to be powered-on as in such a state, it can be more difficult to carry out certain classes of attack. In conjunction with a computer being powered-on, computer-driven event logging can be activated, to provide even more security.

A 'sleeping' computer can perhaps be made more secure if the computer is designed to 'incinerate' security keys (cf. §"Destroy_key_when_attacked") in the event of a hard shutdown (opposite of graceful shutdown, such shutdowns possibly being instigated by intruders wanting to perform tampering on the computer whilst it's in a powered-off state) as well as in the event the computer detects system tampering (such detection being possible whilst the computer is turned-on, at least to a certain extent). This can possibly be implemented by moving (and not simply copying) the keys from non-volatile memory (such as a TPM, BIOS/UEFI firmware, or system disk), to volatile memory, whilst the computer is in operation. Upon a graceful shutdown, the keys would then be moved back to non-volatile storage. With such a set-up, a hard shutdown would result in the loss of the keys. It should be noted that data can sometimes be recovered from powered-off volatile memory (see here for more about this); in light of such, perhaps certain kinds of volatile memory that properly get wiped when losing power, ought to be chosen.

Sleep-mode on computers can potentially be leveraged for higher security, when running an OS only from volatile system RAM. A computer need not make use of system disks, or live CD/DVDs, for weeks and maybe even months at a time, by simply running the OS straight from volatile system RAM, and putting the computer to sleep during periods when it is not needed. This would likely improve security so long as the OS were properly locked (whether by use of passwords or otherwise) to prevent illegitimate users from doing normal user actions, because it is probably more difficult to tamper with volatile-system-RAM data in a constantly-on OS-locked computer than with data on non-volatile data mediums (such as system disks and live DVDs). The security would also be higher, because such a method of computing would also provide extra tamper detection and tamper evidence. It would likely be difficult to fiddle with the OS as loaded into volatile system RAM on such a computer, whilst the computer is on, as such fiddling would probably result in a corruption of the computer's state, and would then provide some tamper evidence and tamper detection; the computer perhaps would be 'frazzled' such that it required a reload into the volatile system RAM of the whole OS. To ensure better that such 'frazzling' takes place as a form of tamper evidence and tamper detection, the OS could be stored in volatile system RAM only as encrypted data. To be even more secure with respect to preventing the stealing of user data, unused portions of the volatile system RAM could be zeroed (securely wiped) before the computer is put to sleep, to prevent 'forensic' methods from recovering data deleted only using shallow-depth deletion methods (see here for info about data being able to be recovered from powered-off volatile RAM.) Such a system could perhaps be used in conjunction with a Raspberry Pi set-up, where in the eventuality that tampering were detected, a brand-new Pi set-up could be purchased (at a low price because Pi devices are cheap), and the old set-up sold-on as either spare parts, or as components potentially not secure. A Raspberry Pi set-up would also be good, as placing the system into "sleep" mode would likely not require much power, and because batteries, as opposed to a powered mains supply, could supply such power during the "sleep" mode, thereby overcoming attacks focused on disrupting the mains supply of electricity. This kind of set-up was proposed in the forum topic entitled "Secure computing using Raspberry Pi for business purposes" on the Raspberry Pi forums. Such a set-up could also potentially be used for storing cryptography keys, and certain files especially needing not to be corrupted, in such ways, that they are less prone to being maliciously corrupted than if they were stored in non-volatile mediums. These principles may be in effect with certain constantly-on servers, and it could be useful looking at the security principles in play for "permanently on" servers, to get further guidance regarding these things.


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Phabricator Administrator's Handbook/Arcanist

Arcanist is a command line tool designed for developers to interact with Phabricator. For example, with Arcanist you can send a patch to a Phabricator repository.

Overview
Arcanist simplifies some collaboration workflows.

For example this may be a workflow supported by Arcanist:

 * one contributor clone the repository and do some changes
 * the contributor run  and follows the instructions to share its patch and start a review
 * the patch may be accepted or not, requesting some other edits for example
 * the patch can be changed until it does not respect the upstream expectations
 * each patch update can trigger some continuous integration checks with Harbormaster
 * the patch can be finally accepted
 * the contributor may be able to run  to land its patch on the upstream repository, with the right commit message - or the upstream developer run   for him if the contributor is not trusted and cannot be allowed to push etc.

This workflow is supported for git, Subversion and Mercurial (with minor changes).

Note: The patch can also be uploaded without Arcanist, but you lose some features! So just try it.

Further notes about using :

 * Official documentation about Arc Diff

Patch vs pull request
Sometime people does not have any familiarity with the "patch" logic promoted by Phabricator. The interesting thing about a "patch"-based logic, in contrast with "pull request logic", is that a patch can be changed multiple times and can also be rewritten from scratch etc. and can promote a linear history.

In fact, at the end of the patch review, the patch can "land" in the repository with a single clean commit. In this way you can keep "one idea" = "one commit".

One live example is the Phabricator repository itself, where every single commit is related to a patch that is heavily discussed and rewritten before going online. The result is a repository with a clean and linear history where every commit rappresents one idea and where every commit has a complete explanation about what were the needs etc.:

https://secure.phabricator.com/source/phabricator/history/master/

Installing Arcanist
Arcanist is packaged in most of GNU/Linux distributions.

Installing in Debian-based distributions
In Debian GNU/Linux, Ubuntu, or any other derivative distribution, the installation of Arcanist is very simple:

That's it.

Installing in Microsoft Windows
If you want to install Arcanist in Microsoft Windows 10 you can follow the related page:

 * Installing Arcanist in Microsoft Windows 10