In this report we define an encoding of Levys call-by-push-value lambda-calculus (CBPV) in the pi-calculus, and prove that our encoding is both sound and complete. We present informal (by-hand) proofs of soundness, completeness, and all required lemmas. The encoding is specialized to the internal pi-calculus (pi-i-calculus) to circumvent certain challenges associated with using de Bruijn index in a formalization, and it also helps with bisimulation as early-, late- and open-bisimulation coincide in this setting, furthermore bisimulation is a congruence. Additionally, we argue that our encoding also satisfies the five criteria for good encodings proposed by Gorla, as well as show similarities between Milners and our encoding. This paper includes encodings from CBPV in the pi-i-calculus, asynchronous polyadic pi-calculus and the local pi-calculus. We begin a formalization of the proof in Coq for the soundness and completeness of the encoding in the pi-i-calculus. Not all lemmas used in the formalization are themselves formally proven. However, we argue that the non-proven lemmas are reasonable, as they are proven by hand, or amount to Coq formalities that are straightforward given informal arguments.

Building on the standard theory of process algebra with priorities, we identify a new scheduling mechanism, called "constructive reduction" which is designed to capture the essence of synchronous programming. The distinctive property of this evaluation strategy is to achieve determinacy-by-construction for multi-cast concurrent communication with shared memory. In the technical setting of CCS extended by clocks and priorities, we prove for a large class of "coherent" processes a confluence property for constructive reductions. We show that under some restrictions, called "pivotability", coherence is preserved by the operators of prefix, summation, parallel composition, restriction and hiding. Since this permits memory and sharing, we are able to cover a strictly larger class of processes compared to those in Milner's classical confluence theory for CCS without priorities.

Timnit Gebru--a giant in the world of AI and then co-lead of Google's AI ethics team--was pushed out of her job in December. Gebru had been fighting with the company over a research paper that she'd coauthored, which explored the risks of the AI models that the search giant uses to power its core products--the models are involved in almost every English query on Google, for instance. The paper called out the potential biases (racial, gender, Western, and more) of these language models, as well as the outsize carbon emissions required to compute them. Google wanted the paper retracted, or any Google-affiliated authors' names taken off; Gebru said she would do so if Google would engage in a conversation about the decision. Instead, her team was told that she had resigned. After the company abruptly announced Gebru's departure, Google AI chief Jeff Dean insinuated that her work was not up to snuff--despite Gebru's credentials and history of groundbreaking research.

Yeshimabeit Milner was in high school the first time she saw kids she knew getting handcuffed and stuffed into police cars. It was February 29, 2008, and the principal of a nearby school in Miami, with a majority Haitian and African-American population, had put one of his students in a chokehold. The next day several dozen kids staged a peaceful demonstration. That night, Miami's NBC 6 News at Six kicked off with a segment called "Chaos on Campus." Cut to blurry phone footage of screaming teenagers: "The chaos you see is an all-out brawl inside the school's cafeteria." Students told reporters that police hit them with batons, threw them on the floor, and pushed them up against walls. The police claimed they were the ones getting attacked--"with water bottles, soda pops, milk, and so on"--and called for emergency backup. Around 25 students were arrested, and many were charged with multiple crimes, including resisting arrest with violence.

A woman's job application is rejected because of a recruiting algorithm that favors men's résumés. A girl dies by suicide after graphic images of self-harm are pushed up on her feed by social media algorithms. A black teen steals something and gets rated high-risk for committing future crime by an algorithm used in courtroom sentencing, while a white man steals something of similar value and gets rated low-risk. In recent years, advances in computer science have yielded algorithms so powerful that their creators have presented them as tools that can help us make decisions more efficiently and impartially. But the idea that algorithms are unbiased is a fantasy; in fact, they still end up reflecting human biases.

It's been quite a year, with many wondering if 2016 was simply the worst year ever. Cambridge University professor and physicist Stephen Hawking, however, sees a much darker future ahead. "Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in the next thousand or ten thousand years," Hawking, who is 73 and has been living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) for more than half a decade, told BBC News in January. "By that time, we should have spread out in space, and to other stars, so a disaster on Earth would not mean the end of the human race." But, he added, until humanity can live somewhere other than this planet, we're walking on eggshells: "We will not establish self-sustaining colonies in space for at least the next hundred years, so we have to be very careful in this period."

For some athletes, success has come from a dedication to practice and the repetition of a particular routine. Baseball icon Ichiro Suzuki or English soccer star David Beckham are two examples that immediately spring to mind. Ichiro, for example, recalls hitting around 500 pitches per day as a child practicing with his father. These days, his daily routine includes weight training to maintain strength and flexibility. Beckham, meanwhile, says he must have practiced taking tens of thousands of free kicks as a child.

A 13-year-old in California shook her head at the TV. A 5-year-old in Pittsburgh asked her father why people are so angry. As America coped with one tragic moment after another this week, with the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile followed by the shooting of a dozen police officers in Dallas, the country's parents had an added task: explaining each act of violence to their children. "If [children] see a bunch of this on television, they can become the indirect victims of trauma," said Suzanne Silverstein, director of the Cedars-Sinai Psychological Trauma Center. African American children might be afraid for their own lives or for their friends and families when they see black men being shot.

A 13-year-old in California shook her head at the TV. A 5-year-old in Pittsburgh asked her father why people are so angry. As America coped with one tragic moment after another this week, with the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile followed by the shooting of a dozen police officers in Dallas, the country's parents had an added task: explaining each act of violence to their children. "If [children] see a bunch of this on television, they can become the indirect victims of trauma," said Suzanne Silverstein, director of the Cedars-Sinai Psychological Trauma Center. African American children might be afraid for their own lives or for their friends and families when they see black men being shot.

A new research initiative could provide the building blocks for a program that would send robots trillions of miles into space to better understand our neighboring star system. Billionaire investor Yuri Milner announced the Breakthrough Starshot project, the latest in Mr. Milner's Breakthrough Initiatives started in 2015. Breakthrough Starshot aims to send data-seeking nanocraft to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to the solar system, using laser propulsion. While the Breakthrough board of Milner, physicist Stephen Hawking, and entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg just announced Starshot on Tuesday, they say it may not launch for 20 years, conservatively – and wouldn't reach Alpha Centauri for another 20 after that, despite traveling at one-fifth the speed of light. "We came to the conclusion it can be done: interstellar travel," Milner told The New York Times.