Research
"Research is creating new knowledge" - Neil Armstrong
Most of my research is based on systems design thinking. Coming from an interdisciplinary background, my research combines methods and knowledge from inter-related fields: systems theory (complexity, networks, modularity), design thinking, computational thinking, semiotic thinking, and recent cognitive science approaches to technology, artefacts, and interfaces.
Computer systems, a semiotics perspective
by Linda Bardha
Excerpt
In digital computers, the user’s input is transmitted as electrical pulses, only having two states, on or off, respectively represented as either a 1 or a 0, and this sequence of 0’s and 1’s represents the “computer’s language”. But how did something so easy in concept, just having two states, becomes something so fundamental? Of course we have to take a step back and think about all the principles and interactions that lead us to this idea, the most important of them being the human computer interaction and the meaning behind different signs and symbols.
Is data mining in principle, discriminative?
A look on algorithmic fairness
by Linda Bardha
Excerpt
Now days, we’ve seen problems with algorithms that stand at more sensitive domains, such as the criminal justice system and the field of medical testing. When machine learning algorithms started to be applied to humans instead of vectors representing images, we observed that algorithms were not always behaving “fairly”. It turns out that training machine learning algorithms with the standard maximization objectives, meaning maximizing prediction accuracy on the training data, sometimes resulted in algorithms that behaved in a way in which a human observer will deem unfair, often especially towards a certain minority.
The internet as we don't know it
by Linda Bardha
Excerpt
The internet, “this thing” that we use every day, is such a strange concept, and because we cannot physically see how the internet actually works, we don’t think twice and use the word “magic” to justify the work that is done in the background. But, the internet is not just an isolated box, and certainly it isn’t a magical box. The Internet isn’t just a thing. It is a system of distributed agencies and technical meditations, that has changes the world that we live in. The internet is a product of its social environments, it has shaped the characteristics of communication media and information technology.
Research Blog
