Governmentality and the measuring of governance

This chapter examines how the notion of governmentality has been applied in the study of the ways in which governance is measured. The breadth and insights of governmentality studies in the field of measuring governance is quite impressive. It is not only the concept of governmentality, but also the associated analytical concepts and strategies developed by Foucault and subsequent scholars that have proved highly fruitful for scholars of the role of measuring in governance. The studies of the relationship between the measuring of governance have proved remarkably apt at addressing rationalities and bodies of knowledge, on the one hand, and their interaction with techniques and practices of governing and measuring, on the other. Still, there is room for improvement. Too many governmentality studies lack conceptual, analytical or critical ambitions. The chapter provides some suggestions for new research avenues

Long-term exposure to ambient air pollution and risk of leukemia and lymphoma in a pooled European cohort

Leukemia and lymphoma are the two most common forms of hematologic malignancy, and their etiology is largely unknown. Pathophysiological mechanisms suggest a possible association with air pollution, but little empirical evidence is available. We aimed to investigate the association between long-term residential exposure to outdoor air pollution and risk of leukemia and lymphoma. We pooled data from four cohorts from three European countries as part of the “Effects of Low-level Air Pollution: a Study in Europe” (ELAPSE) collaboration. We used Europe-wide land use regression models to assess annual mean concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), black carbon (BC) and ozone (O3) at residences. We also estimated concentrations of PM2.5 elemental components: copper (Cu), iron (Fe), zinc (Zn); sulfur (S); nickel (Ni), vanadium (V), silicon (Si) and potassium (K). We applied Cox proportional hazards models to investigate the associations. Among the study population of 247,436 individuals, 760 leukemia and 1122 lymphoma cases were diagnosed during 4,656,140 person-years of follow-up. The results showed a leukemia hazard ratio (HR) of 1.13 (95% confidence intervals [CI]: 1.01–1.26) per 10 μg/m3 NO2, which was robust in two-pollutant models and consistent across the four cohorts and according to smoking status. Sex-specific analyses suggested that this association was confined to the male population. Further, the results showed increased lymphoma HRs for PM2.5 (HR = 1.16; 95% CI: 1.02–1.34) and potassium content of PM2.5, which were consistent in two-pollutant models and according to sex. Our results suggest that air pollution at the residence may be associated with adult leukemia and lymphoma.</p

Disparity of Abstract Color Representations in Convolutional Networks

A common occurrence in the deep learning community is to theorize on what abstract representation data takes inside a network. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the expected representation from a simple well-defined problem takes on other forms than what human thought processes would expect it to do. The experiment uses CIFAR-10 and a FRUITS dataset as its base and compares models trained on RGB variants to models trained on separated red, green, and blue color channels. A simplified FRUITS dataset variant represents a much simpler problem of classifying tomatoes and capsicum based on their significant red and green color. Generally, the RGB model variant outperformed the separated variants; but for the simplified FRUITS experiment, we observed the blue color channel outperforming the red and green model variants with its performance on par with the RGB variant. This suggests that the model has chosen a blue filter to represent the classification features. We also confirm that the blue color variant is most prominent feature contributor through cross-testing the RGB model variant. For a simple classification problem, the models choose to represent the classes in a less intuitive form than what was expected from the simplicity of the data representation. We aim for further discussion about the disconnect of internal data representation of deep learning to the human counterpart.</p

Violent infrastructure, nationalist stigmatisation and spatial erasure

This article studies the violent politics of stigmatisation and erasure of nationalist urban infrastructure. In general, urban infrastructure is a mechanism of state power. But, through the case of the imposing presence of Turkish nationalist infrastructure in the Kurdish city Diyarbakir, it demonstrates that when tied to an antagonistic nationalist political project, this infrastructure is often purposefully built to violently cleanse urban spaces of the national “other”. Be it a statue, a mural or a picture of a nationalist leader – this infrastructure is incapable of inflicting physical pain. Nonetheless, its violence is symbolic and meant to have a real effect on Diyarbakir’s Kurds’ ability and willingness to identify as Kurds. That said, violence does not entirely inform the spatial experience of those targeted by this nationalist infrastructure. The article demonstrates that Kurdish residents also found ways of remaining unaffected, even treating the infrastructure laden with Turkish nationalist iconography as a reminder of their own Kurdish identity. This article thus expands our understanding of what nationalist infrastructure does. It may be designed to be violent. However, it also reveals itself to be a site of contestation – equally inspiring the persistence of the counter-narrative of the national “other”

Gendering Public and Private International Law:Transversal Legal Histories of the State, Market, and the Family through Women's Private Property Rights

This essay takes up Karen Knop's challenge to reconstruct the oft-made distinction between private and public law by engaging private international law (PrIL) as a “lost side of international law.”1 To do so we interrogate the changing fortunes (literally) of women's private property rights in the long nineteenth century—a period characterized by the divestment and reinstatement of gendered rights in national law—focusing on the Nordics, Europe more broadly, and the Colonial world. Following Knop and other feminist legal scholars, and by engaging with questions of what Mariana Valverde calls “scale,”2 we bring women's property rights in conversation with international law. In doing so, we point to sites of engagement where the politico-economic structures of international law are lived, negotiated, reconfigured, and made real.3 We use scale to frame and inform our analysis bringing attention to how the “small” (micro) economics and politics of everyday life, women's labor, and gendered legal concerns, underpin and are an intrinsic part of the “large-scale” structures of international law. “All scales shifts,” Mariana Valverde notes, meaning that such “processes . . . br[ing] certain phenomena into focus that had previously been blurred or pushed to the background.”4 Recovering matters of women's history and everyday life, which, as Knop has argued are often “hiding in plain sight,” with a focus on women's property rights, brings to the fore the critical relationship between family/household, market, and the state, and the fundamental role international law has played in implementing a specific economic vision through the organization of gendered power relations

Praktikbog i praksis:Rapport om et udviklingsprojekt på CBSI Sprogcenter

Rapport om udvikling af praktikbog for kursister der deltager i undervisning i dansk som andetsprog. Formålet med praktikbogen er at give kursisterne mulighed for at udnytte praktikstedet til sproglæring som aktiv sproglærende. I rapporten skelnes mellem forskellige former for læring - sociokulturel, lære at lære, livslæring - som alle er relevante for praktikbogens udformning. Derudover beskrives samspillet mellem de læringsrum som praktikbogen kan indgår i: praktikstedet, studiecentret og den ordinære sprogundervisning. Endelig beskrives de forskellige temaer som praktikbogen indeholder