Carnegie Mellon University

About: Carnegie Mellon University is a education organization based out in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Computer science & Robot. The organization has 36317 authors who have published 104359 publications receiving 5975734 citations. The organization is also known as: CMU & Carnegie Mellon.

Fair Prediction with Disparate Impact: A Study of Bias in Recidivism Prediction Instruments

Abstract: Recidivism prediction instruments (RPIs) provide decision-makers with an assessment of the likelihood that a criminal defendant will reoffend at a future point in time. Although such instruments are gaining increasing popularity across the country, their use is attracting tremendous controversy. Much of the controversy concerns potential discriminatory bias in the risk assessments that are produced. This article discusses several fairness criteria that have recently been applied to assess the fairness of RPIs. We demonstrate that the criteria cannot all be simultaneously satisfied when recidivism prevalence differs across groups. We then show how disparate impact can arise when an RPI fails to satisfy the criterion of error rate balance.

Trust as an Organizing Principle

Abstract: Although research on trust in an organizational context has advanced considerably in recent years, the literature has yet to produce a set of generalizable propositions that inform our understanding of the organization and coordination of work. We propose that conceptualizing trust as an organizing principle is a powerful way of integrating the diverse trust literature and distilling generalizable implications for how trust affects organizing. We develop the notion of trust as an organizing principle by specifying structuring and mobilizing as two sets of causal pathways through which trust influences several important properties of organizations. We further describe specific mechanisms within structuring and mobilizing that influence interaction patterns and organizational processes. The principal aim of the framework is to advance the literature by connecting the psychological and sociological micro-foundations of trust with the macro-bases of organizing. The paper concludes by demonstrating how the framework can be applied to yield novel insights into traditional views of organizations and to stimulate original and innovative avenues of organizational research that consider both the benefits and downsides of trust.

The Acquisition, Transfer, and Depreciation of Knowledge in Service Organizations: Productivity in Franchises

Abstract: The paper examines the acquisition, depreciation and transfer of knowledge acquired through learning by doing in service organizations. The analysis is based on weekly data collected over a one and a half year period from 36 pizza stores located in Southwestern Pennsylvania. The 36 stores, which are franchised from the same corporation, are owned by 10 different franchisees. We find evidence of learning in these service organizations: as the organizations gain experience in production, the unit cost of production declines significantly. Knowledge acquired through learning by doing is found to depreciate rapidly in these organizations. Knowledge acquired through learning by doing is found to depreciate rapidly in these organizations. Knowledge is found to transfer across stores owned by the same franchisee but not across stores owned by different franchisees. Theoretical and practical implications of the work are discussed.

Sex Differences in Coping Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Review and an Examination of Relative Coping

Abstract: We used meta-analysis to examine recent studies of sex differences in coping. Women were more likely than men to engage in most coping strategies. The strongest effects showed that women were more likely to use strategies that involved verbal expressions to others or the self—to seek emotional support, ruminate about problems, and use positive self-talk. These sex differences were consistent across studies, supporting a dispositional level hypothesis. Other sex differences were dependent on the nature of the stressor, supporting role constraint theory. We also examined whether stressor appraisal (i.e., women's tendencies to appraise stressors as more severe) accountedfor sex differences in coping. We found some support for this idea. To circumvent this issue, we provide some data on relative coping. These data demonstrate that sex differences in relative coping are more in line with our intuitions about the differences in the ways men and women cope with distress.

Building Watson: An Overview of the DeepQA Project

Abstract: IBM Research undertook a challenge to build a computer system that could compete at the human champion level in real time on the American TV Quiz show, Jeopardy! The extent of the challenge includes fielding a real-time automatic contestant on the show, not merely a laboratory exercise. The Jeopardy! Challenge helped us address requirements that led to the design of the DeepQA architecture and the implementation of Watson. After 3 years of intense research and development by a core team of about 20 researches, Watson is performing at human expert-levels in terms of precision, confidence and speed at the Jeopardy! Quiz show. Our results strongly suggest that DeepQA is an effective and extensible architecture that may be used as a foundation for combining, deploying, evaluating and advancing a wide range of algorithmic techniques to rapidly advance the field of QA.